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MOUNTAIN PEAKS IN THE 
LIFE OF OUR LORD 


By William Bancroft Hill, D.D., Litt.D 
MOUNTAIN PEAKS IN THE LIFE OF 
OUR LORD. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50. 
THE APOSTOLIC AGE. Cloth, $2.00. 
THE LIFE OF CHRIST. Cloth, $1.75. 


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‘ GETHSEMANE 


The olive trees of the Garden, old, broken, distorted, stand as memorials 
of the Agony. 


Mountain Peaks in the. 
Life of Our Lord... 


By / 
\ 
WILLIAM BANCROFT HILL, D.D., Lirt. D. 


Author of “The Life of Christ,’ “ The Apostolic 
Age,” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


ez ‘ Fa sa 
— 434 
raRTTAU 





New Yorr CHICAGO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


LONDON AND EDINBURGH 


Copyright, MCMXXV, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 


To the 
Dear Memory 


of 
Virginia W. 


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PREFACE 


HEN first I made a pilgrimage through 

Palestine, more than thirty years ago, 

I was impressed with the fact that 

most of the great events, the mountain peaks, in 

the life of our Lord took place on some hillside or 

mountain top. And when I returned, I wrote for 

myself and my friends a sketch of that life in 

which I sought to make the prominent points in 

His ministry stand out distinctly in the setting He 

chose for them. Later visits to Palestine and a 

prolonged study of His life have led me to enlarge 
this sketch and offer it to a wider circle. 

Unlike my Life of Christ, this little book is not 
for the critical student, though I trust it will bear 
his study. Ihave had in mind the general reader, 
who shrinks back from the dryness of a textbook 
or the bulkiness of an exhaustive narrative, but 
does wish to gain a clear idea of just what Jesus 
was trying to do in the successive periods of His 
public ministry and how far He succeeded or 
failed. If I mistake not, he wants a book that 
can be read in snatches or at a sitting, that places 
emphasis upon the important events, that quick- 
ens his own imagination without leading it astray, 
and that finds in the gospel story the spiritual 

5 


6 PREFACE 


nourishment for which the soul of man is ever 
hungry. Whether I have produced such a book, 
others must decide. I have tried to do so and 
can, at least, cherish the joy of the attempt. 

The illustrations prefacing the chapters are from 
photographs taken nearly forty years ago. They 
have been chosen in preference to those of recent 
date because they more nearly set before us the 
land that Jesus knew. The tramp of armies and 
the shrill voices of tourists have wakened Pales- 
tine from its sleep of centuries; and railways, auto 
roads, new buildings and modern ploughs are 
rapidly transforming its sacred scenes. Such 
changes, whether we approve or deplore them, 
make us value increasingly all pictures secured 
before they came. 

W. B. H. 
Vassar College, 
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 


VIII. 


XI. 


Contents 


THE MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION . II 
. THe MountT oF THE TEMPTATION . 28 
. THe MouNT OF THE TEMPLE . yh e 

THe MouNT OF THE TWELVE . midge re 

THE MoUNT OF THE SERMON. oe 
. THe Mount OF THE MIRACLE . 98 
. THE MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURA- 


TION . K i a ‘ ; . 108 


THE MouNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL 


ENTRY A : , Ms Bde 
THe Mount oF THE AGONY . . 142 
THE Mount oF THE Cross k Sh 
Ture Mount ofr THE ASCENSION . 174 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 
Gethsemane . : : ‘ J : if f . Title 


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I 
THE MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 


F all the places in Palestine—and they are 

() not many—where the traveller can say 
with confidence, “‘ Here once Our Lord 

must have stood,” none is more. certain and satis- 
fying than the summit of the ridge back of Naza- 
reth. The little town slipped down into the valley 
as the centuries went by, so the streets of to-day 
are not the streets of old; but the lonely summit 
of the hill with the wonderful view it commands, 
remains as in the days of the Christ. Looking from 
it to the west one sees the long, bold promontory 
of Carmel framed on either side by a blue strip of 
the Mediterranean. Far away to the north gleams 
Safed, “a city set on a hill,” with the snowy 
heights of Hermon beyond it. Nearer at hand to 
the eastward are Tabor and Gilboa and the Jordan 
valley backed by the mountains of Gilead. And 
looking to the south there meet the eye, first the 
little valley in which nestles the village of Naza- 
reth, then the broad, green plain of Esdraelon 
dotted by Shunem and Nain and Endor, and 
beyond these the hills of Samaria and the dim out- 
line of the mountains of Judea. The whole pano- 
rama is eloquent with voices of the past; and there 


is no place more inviting for one who would medi- 
11 


12 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


tate upon the long and varied history of Israel. 
Beyond question it must have been a favourite 
resort for Jesus when He lived in Nazareth. Hither 
after the day’s work was ended, He would climb 
to watch the sun go down in splendour into the 
western sea; and here on a Sabbath afternoon He 
would sit and ponder upon the fortunes of His peo- 
ple or His own future destiny. Let us look at Him 
first as a boy of twelve, musing here over the ex- 
periences of His recent and wonderful journey to 
Jerusalem. 

The preface to the journey was when Joseph 
gravely said, ‘‘ My lad, you are now old enough to 
become a son of the law, and take its burden upon 
yourself. Hitherto I have been responsible for all 
your acts; henceforth that responsibility must rest 
upon you. I am allowed to bear it no longer.” 
That hour was to Him, as to every Jewish boy, a 
time of real spiritual development. The careless- 
ness of childhood ceased; the seriousness of life 
was realized; the solemnity of personal account- 
ability for each thought and act was borne in upon 
the soul. Would that in the present day, when so 
often our young people refuse to be bound by law 
and scoff at the suggestion of responsibility, some 
such hour of sobering thought might be wrought 
into their lives. 

The journey up to Jerusalem with the company 
that set forth from Nazareth was for the Boy a 
succession of new and stimulating experiences. 


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MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 13 


They passed place after place, each rich in his- 
torical associations,—famous scenes of great events 
which were narrated and discussed and moralized 
upon. They cheered the weary hours of travel by 
singing pilgrim psalms: “I was glad when they 
said unto me, Let us go unto the house of Jeho- 
vah”’; “ As the mountains are round about Jeru- 
salem, so Jehovah is round about His people.” 
They grew more eager and excited as they drew 
near the sacred city. And when at last it burst 
upon their sight, and across the valley of the 
Kedron they saw its ancient walls, its clustered 
houses, its imposing palaces, and chief of all, the 
dazzling marble and gold of the new temple of 
Herod, their joy knew no bounds. ‘Our feet are 
standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem; Jerusalem 
that is builded as a city that is compact together. 
Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within 
thy palaces. For the sake of the house of Jehovah 
I will seek thy good.” It would be hard to over- 
emphasize the effect of such a journey upon an 
eager, receptive, heavenly-minded lad. 

The days that followed were full of deeply spir- 
itual hours, the chief of which was the evening 
when Jesus for the first time partook of a Pass- 
over supper. The feast was held in a room loaned 
for that purpose by some friend; and the host who 
provided the lamb and its prescribed accompani- 
ments may have been Joseph himself. The full 
moon poured a soft light through the open door 


14. MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


and windows; and the sound of hymns sung in all 
the neighbouring houses blended with their own 
words or songs. Each part of the meal was accom- 
panied by prayers or psalms of thanksgiving, and 
each viand and act commemorated some experience 
in the great deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The 
meaning of it all would be explained to the Boy 
while they ate; and it could not fail to awaken 
in Him a new recognition of the might and wis- 
dom and goodness of Jehovah who had so won- 
derfully overthrown the hosts of Pharaoh and 
broken the yoke of the oppressor. 

The temple, too, with its magnificent buildings, 
overpowering to one who had known only the 
simple synagogue at Nazareth, and with its stately 
and elaborate services, must have impressed Jesus 
deeply. No other place in all Jerusalem had such 
attraction for Him. It was the house of God— 
His Father’s house. He rejoiced to be in it. He 
spent large portions of each day there. And when 
He found that by some oversight His parents had 
started on the homeward journey without Him, He 
waited for them in its courts, confident that when 
they missed Him and returned, they would know 
exactly where to find Him. But there was much 
about the temple that surprised and pained Him. 
In the great outer court were Roman soldiers 
stolidly keeping guard against a possible riot, and 
Greek or Egyptian sightseers looking about with 
idle curiosity, and hucksters and traders and 


MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 15 


money-changers loudly proclaiming their wares. ' 
Pharisees and Sadducees wrangled over points of 
doctrine; Judean worshippers muttered their con- 
tempt of the Galileans; priests pushed through the 
crowd impatient of humble pilgrims with scanty 
offerings. Was this a house of prayer or was it 
in reality a place of traffic? And when the Boy 
passed onward through the Court of the Women 
into the Court of Israel where He could look into 
the Court of the Priests, He saw before Him little 
that seemed spiritual. Scores of men in sacred 
robes were labouring as butchers, swiftly killing 
and skinning and cutting up the passover lambs, 
cleansing the entrails and piling the fat upon the 
great altar from which a column of black, greasy 
smoke arose unceasingly. Beyond them the doors 
of the Holy Place stood open; but the feeble light 
of the seven-branched lamp-stand and the dim 
glow of the coals on the altar of incense failed to 
reveal its contents. Could these surroundings 
bring to Him such a sense of intimate communion 
with God as had made sacred certain hours upon 
the hilltop back of Nazareth? 

In someone of the numerous chambers and 
porches of the temple learned rabbis during the 
Passover season sat as teachers for any who might 
desire instruction concerning difficult points of 
the Law. And while the Boy waited for His 
parents, He discovered them and joined the group 
that surrounded them. His eager attention, so un- 


16 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


usual in a mere lad, attracted their notice; and 
they encouraged Him to speak by asking His 
opinion of the problems they were discussing. 
The rabbis always were interested in the impres- 
sion any matter of the Law produced upon the 
mind of a thoughtful child. The approval with 
which they received His replies, emboldened Him 
to question them in turn. There were matters 
over which He had puzzled and pondered, and 
concerning which the men who taught in the syna- 
gogue at Nazareth could give him no help: surely 
these great scholars would be able to tell Him all 
He wished to know. And so it came to pass that 
when His parents found Him, He had become, un- 
intentionally and unconsciously, the central figure 
of the group. The grave rabbis bent forward with 
eager attention as He spoke; and turned to one 
another with looks of amazement at His questions 
and replies. What a wonderful child this was! 
We need not suppose that the Boy possessed 
supernatural wisdom, or was in any way distin- 
guished from a normal human child, save in His 
sinlessness. He spake as a child, but as a child 
who lived in daily touch with God and found the 
heavenly side of life as natural and necessary as 
the earthly side. In His own experience already 
He was verifying the Beatitude, which later He 
proclaimed, “ Blessed are the pure in heart for 
they shall see God.” This was what gave Him 
an “understanding,”’—a ready grasp and quick 


MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 17 


solving of spiritual problems, amazing to the rab- 
bis. He talked about God in the simplest, most 
direct way, calling Him ‘‘ My Father.” What did 
He mean by the term? I think He meant just 
what He wishes us to mean when, as He taught 
us, we say “ Our Father.” To suppose that at this 
period of His life He recognized His unique son- 
ship and in calling God Father made Himself one 
with God, is contrary to the statement of Luke that 
as a child He “increased in wisdom and stature 
and in favour with God and man”; and it makes 
His childhood something so strange and unnatural 
that we could not point to Him as the high ex- 
ample for our own children. The day was to come 
when He would say ‘“ My Father ” with a rela- 
tionship in the words such as no other being can 
claim; but that day was not yet. Probably the 
rabbis were not surprised to hear Him call God 
Father; they used that term themselves, and 
taught their children to use it. But in the lips of 
this child it had a confidence, an intimacy, they 
never had encountered; it expressed implicit trust 
and perfect love and closest companionship. No 
wonder they were amazed and tested Him with 
questions, seeking to discover whether His thought 
of God was as simple, reverent and satisfying as 
it seemed to be. Even to-day, after nineteen cen- 
turies of Christian teaching, how rarely do we 
think of God as “ Our Father ” in all the richness 
of the content of that word! 


18 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


Back in Nazareth once more, Jesus has sought 
His favourite spot on the hilltop, and is thinking 
over the experiences of that first Passover visit. 
There is a troubled look upon the lad’s face. The 
journey to Jerusalem has brought Him much; but 
it has sadly failed to bring all He anticipated and 
. longed for. He did not find God nearer there 
than here. The Holy City was full of things 
unholy,—not only the foul pleasures of the 
Romans, but also the selfishness and hypocrisy 
and worldly-mindedness of its Jewish citizens. 
The temple, which at first so deeply impressed 
Him, proved on closer acquaintance to be a center 
of formalism and greed, in which haughty priests 
ministered in the name of God to heap up riches 
for themselves and their children. And, worst of 
all, the rabbis to whom He had looked as the 
wisest of men in the things of God, revealed them- 
selves as purblind guides, repeating lessons never 
fully grasped, and unable to give the teaching He 
yearned to receive. Why was it? He was willing 
to learn; why could they not teach Him? Had 
God ceased to speak to His people as once of old 
He spake? If the rabbis could not teach, where 
was there a teacher? Suppose that He Himself 
were older and wiser, would He dare to under- 
take the task? And if He did, who would listen? 
Thus pondering and perplexed He communes with 
His soul, as the sun goes down and the shadows 


MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 19 


thicken. Thus, too, the first shadows come into 
His life, and the outline of His future mission 
begins to grow distinct against the darkness. 
“Wist ye not that I must be in My Father’s 
house? ” is slowly changing into “ Wist ye not 
that I must be about My Father’s business? ” 
The hilltop is, indeed, the Mount of Preparation. 
Years goby. The lad of twelve becomes a man 
of thirty. Despite His early dreams of wider use- 
fulness, He still remains in Nazareth, a humble 
artisan toiling as breadwinner for His family. To 
be sure, the family is now grown very small. 
Joseph has long been dead; the brothers have 
reached manhood and gone to Capernaum, Cana 
and elsewhere to make homes of their own; the 
sisters, though yet in the village, are married; and 
His mother alone remains as His charge,—an 
active woman of middle age, much disposed to 
deem Him still in need of her guidance because 
He is so obedient to her wishes. The people of 
the village, without any seeking on His part, have 
learned to look upon Him as their leader in ail 
good things. They come to Him when perplexed 
for words of counsel, and when sorrow-stricken 
for words of comfort. In the synagogue there is 
no one whom the rulers more often invite to read 
the Sabbath lessons from the sacred rolls, and to 
give an exposition of their meaning. A charm 
about Him as He speaks is felt by all; and the 


20 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


earnestness and spiritual discernment of His words 
impress even the most thoughtless. 

While no one in Nazareth is more loved than 
Jesus, no one is more lonely. Beyond His frank- 
ness and friendliness, there is a barrier of reserve 
which His closest friends cannot cross; His inner- 
most thoughts are a sanctuary whose veil is never 
lifted. Simple in His ways, and direct in His 
words, He nevertheless is an enigma even to those 
who know Him best. Other men can easily be 
described by some prominent characteristic; but 
in Him qualities seemingly contradictory are bal- 
anced so perfectly that none can be selected as 
distinctive. He is humble and willing to yield to 
others, yet absolutely independent and, if need be, 
imperative. He is genial and ready to join in all 
innocent festivities, yet there is something of sad- 
ness underlying His merriment, and He loves soli- 
tude. He is hardworking, economical and thrifty, 
but shows no desire for wealth or the abundance 
of things that money buys. He is gentle and in- 
dulgent, but His anger when roused by acts of 
injustice, foulness or cruelty is like a burning fire. 
He is interested in all that pertains to the welfare 
of His village and the progress of His nation; 
nevertheless, local and national ties rest lightly 
upon Him, as if He were in reality a citizen of 
another land. Thus, though He has lived as boy 
and man in their midst, He remains a mystery to 


MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 21 


the villagers. Perhaps the little children come 
nearest to understanding Him: certainly they love 
Him with all their hearts, and are loved most 
fondly in return. 

Let us look at Jesus again in the last of His 
many hours upon the Mount of Preparation. The 
years of toil and varied experience have written 
their record upon His outward form. His hands 
are calloused; His shoulders somewhat bowed; 
His forehead has lines of care and sorrow; and 
His smile, though just as sweet as in boyhood, 
comes less often. Through His intense keenness 
of sympathy He has entered far into the depths 
of human sorrow and suffering, and the record is 
written indelibly upon His face. As He sits there 
now, His thoughts are centered upon tidings which 
in recent months have been coming from Judea. 
John, the son of Zacharias, is baptizing in the 
wilderness and proclaiming that the Messiah is 
soon to appear. Men from Capernaum and even 
from Nazareth have gone to see and hear him, 
and have returned with abundant but conflicting 
reports. The town is buzzing with excitement. 
Is John truly a prophet like those of old? Has 
he a right to preach and baptize? Can it be pos- 
sible that the Messiah is close at hand? What 
will He be and do when He does come? Here are 
questions for which Jesus must seek an answer 
most carefully, since they bear directly upon His 


22 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


own future course. ‘There is plenty to ponder 
over in this hour upon the Mount. 

John is His kinsman. Mary has revealed this 
to Him with all the story of John’s birth,—the 
vision in the temple, the promise given by the 
angel, the dumbness that sealed the father’s lips, 
her own visit to Elizabeth, and the great rejoicing 
when the child was circumcised. She never had 
spoken of these things before; now she rehearsed 
them at length and seemed relieved to tell them. 
But Mary remained silent concerning a matter of 
far greater moment,—the birth of her own child. 
Courage to speak of it failed her. Throughout 
the years she had pondered it in her heart, but 
guarded it from others. At first the shame it had 
brought upon her,—the sneers of her own sex, the 
malicious smiles of foul-minded men—had been 
like a sword piercing her soul. As the years went 
by, the taunts ceased; but she feared they might 
rekindle through even a chance word. Who would 
do anything but scoff, if she declared that her 
child was divinely begotten? As for her Son, she 
could not tell Him about it when He was a little 
lad; and when He grew older the task seemed 
mcereasingly difficult. What would be the effect, 
if she did tell Him? Would He believe her, or 
deem her demented? And if He did believe her, 
what would He do? Joseph was dead; so there 
was no one with whom she could take counsel. 


MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 23 


Sometimes, as she watched her boy quietly toil- 
ing at the bench or patiently performing the every- 
day duties of life, it seemed as if the whole story 
of His birth was a wonderful dream or belonged 
to some other existence. This news about John 
brought back most vividly the promise that her 
child was to be the long-expected Messiah; but 
how this could come to pass she found it impos- 
sible to imagine. Certainly nothing in the present 
indicated that some day He would have the throne 
of His great ancestor, David. No! Let the mat- 
ter rest. He bore the name of Jesus which the 
angel had given. If He was to do more, God 
would certainly indicate it by some wonderful 
sign. 

Concerning the work John is doing, there is 
much that Jesus must now consider carefully and 
prayerfully. John is denouncing the sins of the 
people as fiercely and fearlessly as a second 
Elijah. Doubtless there is justification for every 
word he utters; but will a reformation caused by 
fear prove really permanent or beneficial? The 
wrath of God ought to be proclaimed; but why 
does he say nothing about the love of God? And 
he declares that the Messiah, when He comes, will 
be still more fierce against all evil-doers. Is, then, 
destruction of the wicked the true Messianic mis- 
sion? How runs the ancient prophecy, “A bruised 
reed will He not break; and a dimly burning wick 


24 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


will He not quench’? ‘“ His name shall be called 
Prince of Peace.” Is John right or mistaken? 
John baptizes all who repent of their sins and 
are ready to welcome the Messiah. This is a work 
so novel and distinctive that they call him The 
Baptizer. He treats all Israelites as if they really 
were Gentiles, and his own company of people pre- 
pared for the Messiah formed the true Israel into 
which others are to be received, as proselytes are 
received, by confessing their sins and renouncing 
their former life and being washed with pure 
water. This seems a righteous work: can Jesus 
Himself have a place in it? If He is to join 
John’s company, He must be baptized. But He 
has no sins to confess when John shall question 
Him. It may be hard to make the Baptizer be- 
lieve this; and when he does, he may not be willing 
to baptize Him. Still, if John’s work is of God, 
He ought to help in it; and baptism will show that 
He is ready to take His part along with the others. 
John says that the Messiah is soon to come. 
How will He come? Men are discussing this 
eagerly, and putting forth all sorts of opinions. 
Some hold that He will appear in the clouds of 
heaven with supernatural splendour and with 
power to slay all His foes by the breath of His 
mouth, giving their lands and wealth to the faith- 
ful. Others maintain that He is to spring from 
the root of Jesse, a mighty warrior and wonderful 


MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 25 


counsellor, who by force of arms will bring back 
to the Jews all the glory of Solomon’s day. Of 
these two views the former is the more popular 
because it appeals more strongly to imagination 
and vindictive desires. Jesus can accept neither 
of them: both are too earthly. The Messiah is 
the Son of the Most High, and surely will be in 
spirit like His Father whose heart cherishes love 
towards even His enemies, and whose kingdom is 
purely spiritual. John must be wrong in proclaim- 
ing a Messiah of vengeance; and these men are 
wrong who long for a kingdom of earthly power 
and splendour. He whom God raises up to shep- 
herd His people will be one who by life and word 
and loving service shall teach men that God is 
love, and win them to love Him as they ought. 
“The spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, the 
spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of 
counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of 
the fear of Jehovah. And with righteousness shall 
he judge the poor, and decide with equity for the 
meek of the earth.” 

Where is such an one to be found? Isaiah, who 
foresaw the Messiah’s work most clearly, declares 
that it is a mission full of suffering, in which the 
sins of the people are borne without complaint 
even to a death most undeserved. Who would be 
willing and who would be able to carry it through? 
Would I? This is a question that has forced itself 


26 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


upon the thought of Jesus more than once as He 
studied the Scriptures. If My Father should call 
me to this high and sorrowful task, would I obey 
the call? Hitherto He has asked Himself this 
simply to test His consecration. Now the work 
of John compels Him to ask it as a light on His 
future course. The people are being prepared for 
the Messiah; some one must go forth to do the 
Messianic work. If God says, Whom shall we 
send; and who will go for us?, shall the reply be, 
Here am I, Lord, send me? ‘The question is not 
to be answered without hesitation, yet that which 
makes Him hold back is not fear of suffering but 
a. recognition of the magnitude of such a mission. 
Would it not be presumption to believe that God 
‘will send me on this highest of missions? Is not 
some other of His servants,—John himself, it may 
be,—better fitted and far more worthy? And yet 
dare I, would I, draw back, if I was sure that He 
commanded me to go? Surely there is but one 
_ answer, Behold thy servant, Lord; use me accord- 
ing to thy will. 

When this hour in the Mount is ended and 
Jesus goes down never to return, the next step in - 
His life is determined. He will leave His mother 
in the care of her other children; they are able 
and willing to care for her; and He will seek out 
John. What lies beyond that step He cannot see. 
Peradventure, He will be required only to labour 


MOUNT OF THE PREPARATION 27 


with John in preparing the people for the Messiah. 
That is a work He would gladly do. But it may 
be the divine purpose to call Him to the higher, 
harder work of the Messiah. If so, His Father 
will clearly give the call, and with it the needed 
strength and wisdom and grace. 


II 
THE MOUNT OF THE TEMPTATION 


P from the valley of the Jordan to the 
| little village of Bethany hard by Jeru- 
salem, stretches the Wilderness of Judea. 
It is a desolate, dreary, barren land to-day; and 
there are no signs that it has ever been anything 
else. In its deep gorges Elijah hid from the 
wrath of Ahab; among its hills and valleys John 
the Baptist made his early home; and hither Our 
Lord was driven by the Spirit, immediately after 
His baptism, to meet the adversary in lonely 
Struggle, and gain the first victory of His Mes- 
Slanic ministry. 

On the eastern side of the Wilderness, high 
above the plains of Jericho, towers Jebel Karantel 
—the Mountain of Temptation. Its gray lime- 
stone sides, steep and ragged, are honeycombed 
with caverns where in the Middle Ages whole 
colonies of hermits made their home, and where 
even to-day a few devout Abyssinian Christians 
keep fast and vigil through the days of Lent. 
Other habitation on the mountain there is none, 


and its bleak summit offers neither the shade of 
28 


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MOUNT OF THE TEMPTATION 29 


a tree nor the refreshment of a draught of water. 
The tradition that this was the scene of the 
temptation originated with the Crusaders and is, 
therefore, of little value; but Dr. Thomson says 
truly, “If the intention was to meet and conquer 
the arch enemy of God and man in a lonely and 
blasted wilderness, none could be found better 
suited for the purpose than this Jebel Karantel 
and its surroundings.” 

The view from this mountaintop eastward in 
the time of Christ, when the plain below was peo- 
pled and tilled and when Jericho was a beautiful, 
wealthy city, embowered in palms, must have been 
wonderfully attractive; yet it fails completely to 
support a literal statement that from this height 
the devil ‘‘ sheweth Him all the kingdoms of the 
world and the glory of them.” Nor is there a 
mountain anywhere from which such a panorama 
could be had. How, then, about the story of the 
temptation: shall we study it as a record of out- 
ward or of inward experience? ‘The bodily pres- 
ence of Satan, the translation to the pinnacle of 
the Temple, the vision from the exceeding high 
mountain,—are these details literal or figurative? 

When seeking to answer this question one fact, 
too often ignored, should be borne in mind:— 
whatever is known about the Temptation must 
originally have been told by Jesus Himself. The 
other recorded chapters of His life had human 
witnesses. Mary could tell of His infancy; Peter, 


30 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


James and John were with Him in the Mount of 
Transfiguration and the Garden of Gethsemane; 
but only wild beasts were His companions in the 
Wilderness. Moreover, this seems to have been 
the only one of the solitary experiences of Jesus 
that He did reveal to His disciples. He spent 
nights alone in desert places and mountains, but 
concerning these we know merely that they were 
nights of prayer; whether angels ministered to 
Him, whether patriarchs and prophets came to 
converse with Him, whether as He prayed He be- 
came transfigured, we are not told. And concern- 
ing what took place in that mysterious interval 
between His death and resurrection, we know ab- 
solutely nothing, except the promise to the dying 
thief, “‘ To-day shalt thou be with Me in Para- 
dise.”’ The revelation of the Temptation is thus 
unique. 

His statement concerning His experiences in the 
Wilderness must be interpreted in harmony with 
other similar statements by Him. For example, 
in determining whether Satan appeared in bodily 
form we should compare “The tempter came to 
him ” with ‘ The prince of this world cometh ” 
(John 14:30); and ‘Then the devil leaveth 
him ” with “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from 
heaven” (Luke 10:18); and “ Get thee hence, 
Satan ” with similar words spoken to Peter (Mark 
8:33). His customary way of speaking about 
Satan will throw light upon the present narrative, 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPTATION 31 


because the present narrative originally was His. 
Moreover, since the Temptation was essentially a 
spiritual experience, we need to inform ourselves 
of the manner in which Jesus usually depicted 
such spiritual experiences. ‘‘ Behold, Satan hath 
desired to have you that he may sift you as 
wheat ” (Luke 22:31); ‘“ This woman whom Satan 
hath bound ” (Luke 13:16); “ Straightway cometh 
Satan, and taketh away the word” (Mark 4:15): 
if we do not give these words a literal interpreta- 
tion, why should we search our atlases for a suit- 
able high mountain, and suggest, as some absurdly 
have done, that by refraction all the kingdoms of 
the world might become visible therefrom in a 
moment of time? In short, Christ’s account of 
His struggle with Satan must not be understood 
as we understand Matthew’s account of the cast- 
ing out of devils from the demoniac of Gadara. 
We may not conclude that it is a parable; but we 
must not forget that it is an attempt to make 
earthly hearers comprehend matters belonging to 
the world of spirits;—a world of which we can 
know so little that any statement to be intelligible 
must to some degree be figurative. 

Even if Jesus had been doubtful about His Mes- 
sianic mission before His baptism, all uncertainty 
ended at that hour. The voice from heaven, 
“Thou art my beloved Son,” was a clear state- 
ment that He was the Messiah; and the descent 
of the Holy Spirit was the final preparation for 


32 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


His appointed work. The Father had called Him 
to found the Kingdom of God upon earth, and to 
bring all men into it. Tremendous as was the 
task, He did not draw back; but before He could 
enter upon it, He must first determine how it 
could be accomplished. How could He draw all 
men unto Himself, and through Himself to His 
Father? His future course hinged on the answer 
to this question: and in search of an answer He 
was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness where 
in loneliness He could think the matter through. 
Day after day He wandered there fasting. The 
fast was involuntary: He was so absorbed in 
thought that bodily wants were unnoticed. We 
remember how His absorbing conversation with 
the woman at Jacob’s well made Him forget en- 
tirely His weariness and hunger. That the fast 
should continue for forty days is not incredible. 
Men who in recent times have sought to imitate 
it, have met with poor success; but they lacked 
the perfect body with its unmarred powers of en- 
durance that belonged to the Son of Mary. Later 
on in His public ministry, when the touch of the 
needy multitude had been a continual drain upon 
His powers, physical exhaustion came more 
quickly: but now it was not until He had gone 
without food for forty days that the limit of en- 
durance was reached and “ He was an hungered.” 
And, in this hour of weakness, the struggle, which 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPTATION 33 


had been going on throughout the whole period, 
culminated in the three great temptations. 

What were the temptations? Let us seek to 
enter reverently into the thoughts of Our Lord 
in this hour of conflict on Jebel Karantel. They 
all center around one problem, How best can I, 
the Son of God, persuade my countrymen to ac- 
cept me as their Messiah and Saviour? For, if 
He can win the Jews, then—as the prophets fore- 
told—they will become missionaries to all the 
world, and through their labours the Kingdom of 
God will speedily be established. The tempter is 
ready with a most promising program, suggested 
by Christ’s own hunger:—‘‘ Command that these 
stones become bread.” Life is hard in Palestine 
and everywhere. From the day when he was 
driven out of Eden man must sweat for his daily 
bread and ever be anxious about what to-morrow 
has in store. Weakness, disease, suffering are his 
lot; and death comes speedily. Must it always 
be so? The Jews are dreaming of a Golden Age 
when the curse shall be lifted. How often Jesus 
has heard some fellow-toiler say, as he paused to 
straighten his aching back, ‘‘ When the Messiah 
comes, we shall not have to work any more: He 
will feed us as Moses fed our fathers in the wil- 
derness; and He will drive away all sickness and 
sorrow. Would that He were here now!” The 
Son of God has the power to turn stones into 
bread; He can feed the hungry and heal the sick 


34 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


and raise the dead and banish all the hardships 
of life. And if He will do this, which the people 
are expecting the Messiah will do, then with wild 
enthusiasm they will hail Him as the Promised 
One, and scramble for a place in His kingdom. 
But what kind of subjects will they be? Drawn 
to Him by hunger for only earthly things, will 
they listen to Him with any desire when He tells 
them of heavenly things? ‘I am come that they 
might have life, and that they might have it more 
abundantly.” And what is true life? The Scrip- 
ture says, ““ Man shall not live by bread alone, 
but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God.” The Messiah’s mission is to 
satisfy, not the hunger of the body but the hunger 
of the soul. Jesus must hold Himself steadily to 
that, and not forsake it for a lesser work. 

One temptation overcome, another follows. 
The Jews are ever quoting a prophecy that de- 
clares, “The Lord whom ye seek will suddenly 
come to His temple”; and they vie with one an- 
other in imagining the startling, wonderful man- 
ner in which He will come. Why should Jesus 
not meet their expectations, and thus lead them 
to accept Him? Suppose, so the tempter suggests, 
that at the hour of sacrifice, when rulers and peo- 
ple are thronging the temple and praying for the 
coming of the Messiah, you descend from heaven 
borne on the wings of angels; nothing more will 
be needed to make them believe on you. The 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPTATION 35 


chief priests will prostrate themselves in adora- 
tion; the rabbis will accept you without a ques- 
tion; and the Sanhedrin will proclaim to the whole 
nation,—to the Jews in Alexandria and Rome as 
well as in Jerusalem,—that the Messiah’s reign is 
begun. So easily and quickly your great desire 
can be accomplished. The answer to this tempta- 
tion is, What of the nature of the Kingdom thus 
established,—-will it be the Kingdom of Heaven? 
A faith based upon miracles has in it nothing spir- 
itual, and a craving to see the marvellous does not 
awaken willingness to hear the still, small voice 
of the Spirit. The children of Israel, who would 
not follow Moses except he wrought signs and 
wonders, were given what they desired; but at the 
end they perished in the wilderness because of 
their unbelief. Against their fate remains the 
eternal warning, ‘“‘ Thou shalt not make trial of 
the Lord thy God.” Can it be ignored? 

There is still a third temptation. Rome sits 
secure, the mistress of the world. Her power 
reaches out in all directions: her armies trample 
down all nations; her law is the final word of com- 
mand; her emperor is worshipped as a god. Shall 
not the kingdom of the Messiah be even more 
mighty and splendid? And how did Rome gain 
her mastery of the world? By persistent, remorse- 
less warfare. So, likewise, David once fought the 
Philistines and set up his kingdom; so, again, 
Judas Maccabeus conquered the Syrians and 


36 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


gained a throne; so now the Jews fondly hope that 
the Messiah will summon them to drive out the 
procurator and the publican who prey upon God’s 
people, and thus to bring back the glory of the 
days of Solomon. The tempter whispers, ‘ You 
are to be the Great Deliverer. Take a lesson from 
me. Seize the sword, and summon your country- 
men: they will follow you gladly, madly. With 
such a band of Gideon, you can destroy the 
Roman army, and rouse all subject peoples to re- 
volt, and seat yourself triumphantly on the im- 
perial throne. And with Rome as your capital and 
Jerusalem as your sacred city, you can spread the 
worship of Jehovah from the Euphrates to the pil- 
lars of Hercules.” But they that take the sword 
shall perish by the sword; and a kingdom based 
on hatred, and gained by strife and bloodshed is 
devilish, not divine. ‘It is written, Thou shalt 
worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt 
thou serve. Get thee hence, Satan.” 

The tempter, unmasked and powerless, has 
nothing more to offer. There remains for Jesus 
only one way in which to win His crown,—the 
way of the cross. Patiently, bravely, persistently 
and against constant opposition He must teach the 
truths that are the eternal principles of the divine 
Kingdom, and seek acceptance for them and for 
Himself. If the rulers reject Him, He must turn 
to the people; and if they refuse to listen, He must 
instruct a little band of disciples. And ever the 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPTATION 37 


insolence and the ignorance and the selfishness of 
those with whom He labours will make the burden 
lie more heavily upon His soul until at last He 
will die with the cry, “ My God, My God, why 
hast thou forsaken Me!” It is the bitter path to 
Calvary, but it is the only road by which to ascend 
the throne. 

““'When the devil had completed every tempta- 
tion, he departed from Him for a season,” a very 
brief season. Just as soon as Jesus began His 
public ministry, the temptations were presented 
again. When He offered Himself to the priests 
and rulers, their constant question was ‘‘ What 
sign showest Thou?” When He proclaimed His 
gospel to the people, they cared little for His mes- 
sage, but clamoured for miracles of healing and 
for bread. And when He turned to the work of 
training the Twelve, their thoughts were full of an 
earthly kingdom, and they jealously watched for 
any hint as to which of their number would be 
given the highest place in it. What He had re- 
viewed in thought when alone in the wilderness, 
He encountered in action when He went forth on 
His mission. But He had fought the tempter in 
advance, and could not be taken by surprise nor 
swerved from His course. ‘‘ The prince of the 
world cometh: and he hath nothing in me: but 
that the world may know that I love the Father, 
and as the Father gave me commandment, even 
so I do.” 


38 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


This study of the struggle in the Wilderness 
makes clear why Jesus, apparently more than 
once, told His disciples about it. He wished them 
to realize that the temptations of His public min- 
istry were not something unexpected and for which 
He was unprepared, but had been foreseen and re- 
jected at the outset; and the course He was fol- 
lowing was not forced upon Him or shaped by cir- 
cumstances, but was deliberately planned. Also, 
perhaps we can understand,—what sometimes 
seems very puzzling—how a sinless being can be 
tempted. Our usual definition of temptation is 
stated by St. James,—‘ Every man is tempted 
when he is drawn away by his own lust and en- 
ticed.” And we imagine that if there is no evil 
desire within us, there can be no real temptation 
from without. But suppose there be placed before 
us a choice between that which is good and that 
which is better; then with no lust for evil things, 
the temptation may be actual and strong to take 
the good and refuse the better. ‘So it was with 
Jesus. The suggestion of Satan was that He 
should win men by offering them, not that which 
is evil but that which is not the best. To feed 
the hungry, to give a sign to the doubting, to lead 
a subject nation in a struggle for deliverance, were 
in themselves not wrong; and they would bring 
Him surely and quickly the following and allegi- 
ance that He craved. ‘Therein lay the power of 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPTATION 39 


the temptation to use these means; and the 
greater His desire to win men to the Father, the 
keener was its appeal. The very love that led 
Him to the cross made it hard for Him to turn 
away from the path pointed out by Satan; and so 
“ He suffered, being tempted.” 

The writer to the Hebrews says, ‘‘ We have not 
a high priest that cannot be touched with the feel- 
ing of our infirmities; but one that hath been 
tempted in all points like as we are, yet without 
sin,” that is, without the sinful desires which lurk 
in all human hearts. In every temptation we can 
look to Him for help; but only in those that are 
like His,—those that come when in His name we 
seek to carry forward His work and extend His 
Kingdom, can we have, not only His help but His 
sympathy. The three temptations of the Wilder- 
ness come to us, as to Him, when we undertake 
to win men for the Kingdom of God. There is the 
Bread temptation,—to draw men to God by point- 
ing out how godliness may be profitable in dollars 
and reputation, or by making social reform the 
great end of Christian work, with the belief that 
what men chiefly need in order to be good are com- 
fortable lodgings and abundant wages and fre- 
quent holidays and innocent amusements,—forget- 
ting that man shall not live by bread alone. 
Godliness does sometimes bring earthly rewards, 
and the care of men’s bodies and minds is not to 


40 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


be neglected, and converts in gratifying numbers 
can be made through such appeals: but what 
about their quality and stedfastness? ‘Then there 
is the Temple temptation, to proclaim ourselves 
the favourites of heaven to emphasize revelations 
and the supernatural, to glorify God by first 
glorifying ourselves. It was in this way that 
Joseph Smith built up the Mormon church; and 
more honest men have not always shunned similar 
methods. But again, what of the quality of such 
converts and the nature of their faith? Keenest 
of all to-day is the Mountain temptation; to use 
in our work the methods of the world; to draw 
men to God by making religion easy, attractive, 
popular; to fashion the church after the prosper- 
ous social club, counting the year’s work a suc- 
cess if the treasurer’s report shows a balance; and 
to speak so well of all men that all men shall speak 
well of us. To this temptation there is but one 
response, ‘‘ Get thee hence, Satan. Your words 
are an abomination; your arguments are lies. 
There is only one way whereby we can bring men 
to a saving knowledge of the truth: it is the way 
our Master trod before us. And though the path 
be trodden by few, and its end be seeming failure, 
may God give us grace to follow it.” 

Thus in our divine mission we must meet 
temptation as did Our Lord,—meet it in loneli- 
ness, meet it in weakness, out in the desert where 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPTATION 41 


wild beasts howl and human help is vain. But the 
Word of God is our strong weapon, and the sym- 
pathy of Christ our constant solace; and angels 
wait to minister unto us when the victory is won. 


iit 
THE MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 


LOSE to the eastern edge of the high 
Cc; plateau of Judea, though separated from 

it by the Mount of Olives, stands a 
natural fortress,—a great spur of rock pushing out 
southward and surrounded on three sides by a 
ditchlike valley which sinks at one point to five 
hundred feet below the crest of the rock. A 
smaller valley divides the spur into two sections, 
of which the eastern, though somewhat lower, is 
the more inaccessible and, therefore, the more 
easily defended. Here, even in prehistoric times, 
the search for safety from enemies brought men 
to build their homes and rear their altars. Here 
may have been the abode of Melchizedek, king of 
Salem and priest of God Most High, who received 
tithes from Abraham and gave a blessing in re- 
turn. Here certainly was the stronghold from 
which the Jebusites looked down in derision upon 
the forces of David, until Joab found a way to 
climb the cliffs and force them to surrender, win- 
ning thereby for himself appointment as chief and 
captain of the host, and for his king a capital 
which through all the later centuries would be 


known as the City of David. And when, a short 
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MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 43 


time after, the ark was brought here and set in its 
place in the tent that David had pitched for it, 
Jerusalem became not only the political but also 
the religious center of the Jews. 
On this Mount, after David slept with his 
fathers, Solomon built a temple for Jehovah, the 
‘splendour of which was rivalled by that only of 
the palace he built for himself. Five hundred 
years later Zerubbabel and the exiles set free by 
Cyrus built a second temple on the same founda- 
tions, laying its first stones with songs of thanks- 
giving by the priests and shouts of joy by the peo- 
ple, strangely mingled with the tears and wailing 
of old men who remembered the first temple and 
contrasted its glory with the poverty-stricken pros- 
pects of its successor. Again five hundred years, 
and when Mary at Nazareth was but a babe, 
Herod built the third temple, still keeping to the 
old foundation lines but carrying the walls up a 
hundred and fifty feet. He built it of marble, and 
covered the front, which faced the east, with plates 
of gold. When the morning sun shone on it from 
above Mount Olivet, it must have seemed like a 
mountain of snow veiled by a curtain of fire upon 
which a thin waving line of black altar smoke 
stood out distinctly. The sacred house was en- 
closed by a series of courts with walls and cham- 
bers and porticoes and gates, sanctuary within 
sanctuary, still under construction in the days of 
Jesus, and not completed until almost the year 


44 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


when both temple and city perished in the mad 
revolt against Rome. The temple of Herod was 
one of the seven wonders of the world. Travellers 
of alien faiths counted a long journey well repaid 
when they were admitted into the Court of the 
Gentiles, and could gaze upon the scene before 
them. And Jews in foreign Jands reckoned their 
lives a disappointment unless once, at least, they 
were able to ascend the Holy Hill, and worship 
within the sacred gates. 

When Jesus came forth from His battle in the 
Wilderness, He had determined upon the first 
measure of His public ministry; He would appeal 
for recognition to the Jewish rulers. One duty 
of the Sanhedrin was to pass judgment upon Mes- 
sianic claims:—He would present Himself openly 
before its members for their acceptance or rejec- 
tion. The place for this, most fitting and already 
indicated by prophecy, was the temple; and the 
time most opportune was the Passover, when wor- 
shippers from every land crowded its courts for 
the feast. Meanwhile, since the Passover was sev- 
eral weeks away, He would return to Nazareth. 
On His way thither He came to the ford of the 
Jordan where John was baptizing; and naturally 
He tarried there a little to learn what changes had 
been wrought in the work of His kinsman by the 
sacred revelation they two had received. John 
still was preaching repentance and the Kingdom 
of God; and now he had a new message, “‘ The 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 45 


Messiah whom ye seek is already in your midst, 
though ye know Him not.” As he caught sight 
of Jesus coming toward the circle of his hearers 
he eagerly pointed Him out to them: ‘“ This is 
He of whom I spake: Behold the Lamb of God.” 
Whereupon Jesus at once withdrew, not wishing to 
encounter the idle curiosity or rouse the ignorant 
excitement of the crowd. 

The next day, we have reason to believe, was 
Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, on which Jesus 
would not pursue His journey, and none would 
come to be baptized by John; so the Baptist had 
with him only two of his followers, the boy John 
and Andrew, when again he caught sight of Jesus 
and pointed Him out. The two hastened to fol- 
low and speak with Him; and then, after finding 
and bringing their brothers, James and Simon 
whom Jesus called Peter, they spent the day at 
His abode. Andrew and Peter, we may suppose, 
told Him of their fellow-townsman, Philip of 
Bethsaida; and on the morrow, before starting for 
Nazareth, Jesus sought him out and said, “ Follow 
Me.” Philip in turn must find his friend, Nathan- 
ael, and bring him to Jesus. Thus quickly and 
naturally six disciples were gathered. It is the — 
first illustration of how rapidly the followers of 
Jesus increase when each man who has found Him 
will not rest content until he has sought and 
brought a friend or, if that is impossible, has 
prayed the Master to find him. 


46 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


_ When these six disciples thus accepted Jesus as 
the Messiah, what did they know about His nature 
and mission? Simply what the Baptist had told 
them, and what their own imperfect understanding 
of the Scriptures had disclosed. Much of what 
they believed Him to be was erroneous, and much 
of what they expected Him to do was doomed to 
disappointment. ‘They felt the charm of Jesus, 
they recognized the authority with which He 
spoke, they marvelled at His knowledge of them- 
selves, and they loved Him increasingly; but their 
creed concerning Him was scarcely more than an 
enthusiastic Eureka. They were in the kinder-’ 
garten stage of Christian knowledge, and needed 
long and patient tuition before they could be grad- 
uated as leaders of the church. 

The first lesson was at Cana of Galilee. Here 
the Six were taught the difference between the 
Baptist and the Messiah. John had called them 
into the loneliness of the desert; Jesus led them 
back to the life of the town. John came neither 
eating nor drinking and preached asceticism; 
Jesus made them guests with Himself at a wed- 
ding feast. John did no miracle; Jesus now 
quietly, almost incidentally, wrought a very re- 
markable one. How surprising and instructive 
each of these acts must have been to men who had 
been taught by John that the Messiah would be 
in spirit and deed like himself, only vastly greater! 
The wedding at Cana was for Jesus a manifesta- 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 47 


tion of His glory, and for the disciples the first 
forward step in their knowledge of the real nature 
of His kingdom. 

And how about Mary? When her Son arrived 
with these six disciples, who doubtless told her 
that the Baptist had declared Him to be the Mes- 
siah, her heart must have leaped with joy. At 
last the hour she had dreamed of through the 
years had come; and she eagerly waited for Jesus 
to reveal Himself as the Promised One to the as- 
sembled guests. The failure of the wine seemed 
a divinely arranged opportunity for Him to do this 
by working such a miracle as she and the others 
imagined the Messiah would work; and she confi- 
dently took Him aside to propose that He do it. 
Unwittingly she was placing before Him one of the 
temptations of the Wilderness; and His response 
was not so much to her as tothe tempter. It was 
not unkind nor even discourteous; but it had 
something of the sternness that was in His rebuke 
to Peter when Satan used him, also, as his mouth- 
piece. It was a declaration that she must let Him 
fulfil His Messianic mission in His own way and 
His own time. Hitherto her slightest expression 
of a wish had been for Him as a command: this 
could be so no longer. They had walked and 
worked in loving companionship for many years: 
henceforth the path He must tread could not be 
hers,—He must go forward in it alone. It was 
hard for Jesus to say this to His mother, and hard 


48 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


for her to hear it. Few hours are more trying, 
both to child and to parent, than when such inde- 
pendence of thought and action has to be asserted 
and recognized. The more harmoniously the two 
lives have been united, the more agonizingly the 
inevitable wrench of separation will be felt. But 
the same love that formed the union will furnish 
strength and resignation for the separation: it did 
with Mary. Her word to the servants, ‘‘ Whatso- 
ever He saith unto you, do it,” is her surrender 
of authority to Jesus,—her recognition that hence- 
forth He is to be no longer her son but her 
Messiah. 

Nevertheless, the request Mary had made was 
not prompted wholly by a desire for a show mira- 
cle. The lack of wine, caused perhaps by the 
presence of the six disciples, invited on short 
notice, would embarrass the host, and cloud the 
festivities of the remaining days of the wedding 
celebration; and Mary, who seems to have had 
some part in the preparation of the feast, might 
feel this keenly. Jesus came to her relief. Though 
He would not work a miracle to impress His own 
claims, He could work one as an act of sympathy, 
—such, indeed, were most of His miracles. If 
these six men have caused the wine to run short, 
let six huge waterpots, filled to the brim, be their 
contribution to the feast. Is it fanciful to see, 
not only divine liberality but also something of 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 49° 


quiet humour, in such a solution of Mary’s 
distress? 

When the Passover week was at hand, Jesus 
went up to Jerusalem, taking with Him the dis- 
ciples. What lay before Him there, He could not 
foresee; and what course of action He should fol- 
low, He had not planned: His Father would reveal 
it when the hour came. Quietly and reverently 
the little group entered the great outer court, 
the Court of the Gentiles. Can we imagine His 
thoughts as He stood there surveying the scene? 
To Him the temple with the worship therein con- 
ducted was both the strength and the weakness 
of the Jewish faith. Wherever the Jews were scat- 
tered—and there were more by far outside of 
Palestine than within—it held them together, and 
made them one nation. Toward it they kneeled 
as they offered their prayers, to it they sent their 
gifts from all quarters of the earth, from its glory 
they nourished their pride when despised by the 
Gentiles, and in its sacrifices, so they believed, 
they came closest to God. It was the heart of the 
Jewish people, into which and out from which 
flowed the currents of their life. But the priests 
had monopolized the temple and poisoned those 
currents. Though the Jewish religion proclaimed 
One Only God, present and to be worshipped 
everywhere, the priests said, “In Jerusalem is the 
place where men ought to worship”; and when 
the Samaritans built a temple to Jehovah upon 


50 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


Mount Gerizim, they tore it down. Though the 
prophets taught that His worship should be spir- 
itual, the priests insisted upon the blood of bulls 
and the fat of rams, and contrived that worship- 
pers should pay the temple vendors a high price 
for such offerings. Though it was written, “ My 
house shall be called a house of prayer for all the 
nations,” the priests, by turning the Court of the 
Gentiles into a noisy, bustling market, had made 
worship within that court almost impossible. 

Such desecration of the one place a devout Gen- 
tile might enter roused a holy wrath in the breast 
of Jesus. Should the lowing of cattle and the 
bleating of lambs and the strident cries of money- 
changers drown the prayers of pilgrims who had 
come from heathen lands to worship the God of 
Israel? And should the avarice and extortion of 
those who ministered as servants of Jehovah de- 
press and embitter the hearts of the faithful? 
With surprise the disciples saw their quiet Master 
suddenly rouse to violent action, overturn the 
tables covered with piles of coin, sharply order the 
conscience-stricken traders to depart, and with a 
scourge of cords Himself drive the cattle out 
through the gates. The worshippers, who 
thronged the court, were ready to applaud the 
act of Jesus; but the priests, when they learned 
what He had done came forth at once from their 
court to confront Him. Of their words we have 
but a few, though most significant, and of His re- 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 51 


plies only one, and this most enigmatic. They 
must have demanded, as they did on another oc- 
casion, by what authority He did these things; 
and His reply undoubtedly was, “‘ By the author- 
ity of My Father.” On that later occasion, when 
they were seeking to trap Him in His talk, He 
refused to give them a direct answer; but now, 
when they were simply astonished and enraged, 
He would meet them squarely. That they dimly 
understood He was claiming to be the Messiah, 
is revealed by their demand, “ Show us a sign, see- 
ing that thou doest these things.” Here, as at 
Cana, a temptation of the Wilderness was set be- 
fore Him. 

Would the priests have believed, had a sign 
been given them? I doubt it. They did not at 
all expect a sign, far less desire one. The fearless 
act of this young Galilean had for the moment 
stopped the working of their money-making ma- 
chine; but His claim to have divine authority for 
doing so seemed absurd. He could not be evena 
prophet: ‘Out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” 
Their demand for a sign was a sneer rather than 
an honest request. And His strange reply, “‘ De- 
stroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it 
up,” only confirmed their opinion that He was a 
fanatic with unbalanced mind. The simplest 
course was to dismiss Him with a jest,—‘ Forty 
and six years was this temple in building, and wilt 
thou raise it up in three days?” The crowd 


52 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


would laugh with them at the craziness of this 
stranger. Even the disciples felt that His zeal 
had eaten up His discretion. So the priests could 
afford to leave Him and return to their sacred 
offices, while the money-changers picked up the 
scattered coins, and the vendors gained courage 
to come back with their cattle. 

What did Jesus mean by His words about the 
temple? His conversation with the woman of 
Samaria, when the conflict with these priests was 
still fresh in His mind, may help us to an answer. 
The priests were destroying the temple. They 
were turning it into a temple of Mammon in which 
they professed to worship Jehovah but would just 
as readily worship Jupiter or Venus or any other 
god who might attract as numerous and costly of- 
ferings. Well, let them do with this temple what 
they please: in a very little time Jesus will rear 
another temple, a house not made with hands, in 
which God, who is spirit, will be worshipped in 
spirit and truth by men of every nation and in 
every place. And the temple of Herod shall perish 
in the flames of divine vengeance. The apostle 
John, who treasured the saying of Jesus, found a 
further meaning in it as he pondered over it in 
later years. The temple of which Jesus spake was 
His body, and His words were a prophecy of His 
death and resurrection. This does not contradict 
but rather confirms the other interpretation. The 
greed and godlessness that turned the temple into 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 53 


a den of robbers, did bring about the crucifixion 
of Jesus; and His resurrection from the dead was 
the great message with which the apostles went 
forth in His name to rear the temple of which 
they were foundation stones and He the chief 
corner. 

The Sadducean priests had dismissed the claims 
of Jesus with a sneer. But they were not the only 
nor the most influential members of the Sanhedrin. 
The Pharisees had more weight in that body, and 
more influence with the people; for they were 
looked upon as saints because they gave their 
whole time and thought to the minutest observ- 
ance of the Law. To them Jesus now turned. 
They had approved of His action in cleansing the 
temple, as they would approve of any assault upon 
their hated opponents, the Sadducees. Would 
they do more? During the Passover week Jesus 
must have come constantly in contact with them; 
for they were to be met daily in the streets and 
synagogues, since they loved to be seen of men and 
to receive the applause of the common people 
whom they professed to despise. And Jesus, too, 
was moving among the people, and creating some 
measure of belief by certain miracles,—probably 
acts of healing—that He performed. Later on 
He would arouse the bitter opposition of the 
Pharisees by His disregard of the laws and ob- 
servances they deemed so important; but at pres- 
ent there was nothing to cause their disfavour 


54 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


save that He was from Galilee, untaught by the 
rabbis and a friend of John the Baptist whose 
work they condemned. What attitude would they 
take toward Him? ‘The answer was given by 
Nicodemus, one of the best of them and a member 
of the Sanhedrin. 

We are disposed to think highly of Nicodemus 
because later on he protested against judging 
Jesus unheard, and at the last he came boldly 
forth as His disciple, and joined with Joseph of 
Arimathea in giving His body honourable inter- 
ment. But there is no indication that at the first 
he deserved our praise. He came to Jesus by 
night: every time his name is mentioned that fact 
is rehearsed as something so significant that it 
should not be forgotten. What moved him to 
choose the night-time? It could not be fear of 
the Jews, for there was no reason yet for fear. It 
could not be the desire for a quiet conversation 
concerning the things of God, for Jesus never was 
brusque and enigmatic to any honest seeker after 
truth. Evidently Nicodemus wished his visit to 
be secret; and—as His first words, “‘ We know,” 
indicate—he came representing not himself alone 
but all his party. If we bear in mind the con- 
stant strife between the Pharisees and the Sad- 
ducees, it may help us to guess his object. This 
young man, who already had boldly undertaken 
to purify the temple, might be used in further at- 
tacks upon the arrogant claims of the priests; but 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 55 


any alliance with Him had best for the present be 
kept secret. 

In a way most flattering, yet with something of 
condescension and patronage, Nicodemus began 
the conversation: ‘‘ Rabbi, we know thou art a 
teacher sent of God, for no man can do these signs 
that thou doest except God be with him.” There 
is in these words no hint of hailing Jesus as the 
Messiah, but simply an offer to recognize Him as 
a rabbi,—a teacher who, though untrained in the 
schools, has in some way been taught by God, 
even as the miracles indicate. With good reason 
Nicodemus expected that Jesus would be greatly 
pleased by such a recognition. The position of 
rabbi was the goal of a Jewish lad’s ambition: it 
could be reached only by long years of hard study, 
and it brought the highest dignity and influence. 
Yet this leading member of the Sanhedrin was 
graciously indicating that he and his friends are 
ready to raise this young, unlettered workingman 
to such an exalted position. Surely here was in- 
ducement enough to make Jesus eager to under- 
take whatever might be proposed as a return for 
such promotion. 

What Nicodemus had in mind to propose, we 
never can know; at once Jesus stops him short by 
declaring that the Pharisees are worthless guides 
because blind. They claim to know God’s will 
and belong to His Kingdom because they have 
dedicated their lives to an observance of the Law 


56 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


so strict as to demand the tithing of even a hand- 
ful of petty garden herbs: but all such service of 
God is purely formal, requiring no change of 
heart: and, no matter how exact they are in it, 
they remain in darkness concerning things spir- 
itual; for “ except a man be born anew, he cannot 
see the Kingdom of God.” Such an unexpected 
response to his advances is incomprehensible to 
Nicodemus, and he tries to treat it as an absurd 
pleasantry by asking, ‘‘ How can a man be born 
when he is old?”’ But Jesus goes on to tell what 
the new birth is,—something invisible, mysteri- 
ous, spiritual, through the operation of repentance 
on the part of man and the Holy Spirit on the part 
of God. There is an echo of John’s message, and 
a fresh memory of His own baptism in this teach- 
ing of Jesus: ‘We speak that which we know, 
and bear witness of that which we have seen.” 
To Nicodemus it all is incomprehensible, and he 
pronounces it so; thereby bringing upon himself 
the cutting comment, “ Art thou the teacher of 
Israel, and understandest not these things? ” And 
thus dismissed, the proud Pharisee goes out into 
the night, disappointed, puzzled, indignant, yet 
bearing in his memory precious seed which one 
day will spring up and bear fruit, though not till 
the smart of the planting has ceased. 

With the departure of Nicodemus, the attempt 
to win the rulers ends. Sadducees and Pharisees 
alike have refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah 


MOUNT OF THE TEMPLE 57 


or even as a prophet; acceptance necessitates too 
radical a change in their religious ideas, too costly 
a sacrifice of their comfortable positions and their 
cherished supremacy. The Lord of the temple has 
come to His own, and they that are His own re- 
ceive Him not. With scorn and ridicule they drive 
Him forth from His Father’s house, and turn 
again to their old lives which He for the moment 
has interrupted. The Pharisees stalk the streets 
in self-complacent holiness: the Sadducees min- 
ister at the altar, greedily watching its profits: and 
Jesus goes forth from the city gate, filled with 
that sorrow which later on found utterance in the 
cry, ‘‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I 
have gathered thy children together as a hen gath- 
ereth her brood under her wings, and ye would 
not!” 


IV 
THE MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 


N an open plain just west of the Lake of 
QC) Galilee stands a low square hill with two 

curious knobs and a level space between 
them,—apparently an extinct volcano whose 
crater’s rim has crumbled away except at the 
two knobs. The little village of Hattin is close 
by, and the hill with its two points is called The 
Horns of Hattin. It is the only height to be seen 
from the lake in this direction; and so, despite its 
slight elevation, it might well have been termed 
“the mountain.” Here on a scorching July day 
in 1187 A. D. the great Saladin fought the Cru- 
saders to a finish, and gave the deathblow to their 
Kingdom of Jerusalem. And here, tradition says, 
the Christ whose Kingdom the Crusaders pro- 
fessed to defend, took the first step towards es- 
tablishing that Kingdom by appointing from 
among His disciples twelve men who should be 
apostles. The tradition is so late as to be of little 
value. The Horns of Hattin may be the Mount 
of the Twelve; though I confess that as I stood 


there it did not seem a place Jesus would select, 
58 


‘UOULISS [B}1OWwT 
286 PUL DJAJIM]T IY} VSOYD ‘19aAeId JO JYSIU vB Io}Ze sNsof ‘uoTIpesy sAes ‘ 


NILLVH dO SNYOH HHL 








MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 59 


if He wished to spend the night alone in prayer. 
Luke tells us that He did thus spend the night 
before He chose His apostles. The great events 
in His ministry were ever prefaced with prayer, 
often whole nights of prayer. ‘The evangelist 
takes special pains to point this out: it impressed 
him deeply as it should impress us. Too often 
we use the importance of a coming event as a good 
excuse for cutting short our prayers instead of 
increasing them. 

To understand why the formation of the apos- 
tolate was so important, we must consider the 
situation that demanded it. When the rulers in 
Jerusalem had refused to accept Jesus as Messiah, 
the next possible course was to offer Himself di- 
rectly to the people. Perhaps they would accept 
Him even without the endorsement of the San- 
hedrin; and if He could win the masses, He might 
yet win their recognized leaders. This transfer of 
appeal necessitated a new beginning of His work; 
and for it the best field was Galilee. In Judea 
the population outside of Jerusalem was small; 
and priests and Levites made up a large propor- 
tion of it. There was little of agriculture, less of 
commerce, and nothing of manufacture, to sup- 
port the common people. Everything centered on 
the temple. Judea lived then, as it lives now, 
upon its religious associations; and it traded in 
them then as now shamelessly. Had it not been 
for the hosts of pilgrims flocking to the numerous 


60 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


feasts, the land would have been sparsely in- 
habited; even so, the region from the Jordan val- 
ley almost to the gates of the City of David was 
a wilderness. In Galilee the conditions were dif- 
ferent. Distance diminished the influence of the 
temple and the oversight of the rulers; probably, 
too, the thinly-veiled contempt of the Judeans for 
their less favoured brethren had the same effect. 
Galilee was a fertile and prosperous land, densely 
inhabited, busy with commerce and fisheries and 
agriculture. It was a little country, not much 
larger than Rhode Island, but it had a population 
of possibly two millions. And its people were 
genial, hospitable, polished by intercourse with 
merchants, soldiers, travellers and scholars from 
East and West, charitable to the views of others, 
ready to receive new views themselves. The 
bigots of Judea offered for the seed that Christ 
would sow, hearts as hard and barren as the stony 
hills that made up their land; but the people of 
Galilee gave better promise of abundant harvest. 
The soil was rich and easily tilled; the seed would 
surely grow if the thorns did not choke it. 

The first step in the Galilean ministry was to 
gain the attention of the people. This was done 
by miracle-working. We shall study the miracles 
somewhat fully at another time; now it is enough 
to treat them as trumpet-blasts which drew the 
people in crowds about the new Prophet. How . 
they thronged Him and pressed Him we can 


MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 61 


hardly realize. In these Western lands we are un- 
excitable by nature and homekeepers by inclina- 
tion; but in the Orient men regard their homes as 
temporary stopping-places, and the mere rumour 
of the supernatural will throw a whole region into 
frenzy. As soon as Jesus’ fame went abroad, the 
highways of Syria were filled with excited people, 
hastening to see Him or hoping to be healed by 
Him (Matt. 4:24). Many of these, having little 
to draw them back to their homes, remained with 
Him and constituted a large but fluctuating body 
of disciples. Whether their presence was a help 
or a hindrance in His work is a fair question for 
discussion. But out of that body of disciples 
sprang the apostolate—the great human instru- 
ment for establishing the Kingdom of God among 
men. 

From the beginning of His Galilean ministry 
Christ had seen the need of assistants. In Judea 
He could stand singly before the rulers; but in 
Galilee it was necessary to multiply Himself. in 
order to meet the multitude. For this reason He 
must select out of His disciples certain ones who 
should share His daily life, listen to private ex- 
planations of His hard sayings, be patiently 
trained until they were in mind like Himself, and 
then with the gift of miraculous power be sent 
through the land preaching His gospel. This was 
the first and immediate purpose of the apostolate. 
But in the background stretched a grander work. 


62 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


If Galilee like Judea should reject its Messiah, 
and the cross should terminate the work of Jesus, 
then these apostles, witnesses of His life and filled 
with His spirit, could go forth to proclaim His 
salvation to the ends of the earth. 

Accordingly, at the outset Jesus hunted up four 
of His former disciples, who had returned to their 
fisherboats when the work in Judea was aban- 
doned; and He gave them a new and special call, 
“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 
‘A little later in like manner He called Matthew. 
Perhaps the others, too, were given special calls; 
perhaps they came of their own accord, and 
showed in their discipleship the material out of 
which apostles could be made. In all they were 
twelve men,—a number not too large for the inti- 
mate association He wished to have with them, 
and specially significant as equalling the number 
of the tribes of Israel. Their appointment to be 
apostles came not many weeks after the opening 
of the Galilean ministry, though they were not 
sent forth for work apart from the Master until 
that ministry was near its close. 

We are tempted to ask, What were the thoughts 
of Jesus in the lone night of prayer before He 
chose the apostles; and what were the words He 
spoke in the early morning when He told them 
that henceforth they were to be privileged to share 
His life and work? Instead, it may be more 
profitable to ask, What manner of men were these 


MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 63 


twelve whom Jesus selected to become the founda- 
tion stones of His church? It has been said most 
truly that there is no grander illustration of the 
power of Christ, no more notable miracle, than 
the transformation He wrought when, from catch- 
ers of fish and collectors of customs, He made 
these men into apostles. ‘“‘ The marvel is, not that 
the fishermen of Galilee conquered the world, but 
that Jesus of Nazareth made them its conquerors. 
The wonder lies in the making of the men, not in 
their doings.” We fail to realize this because, too 
often, the apostles seem to us unlike all other men. 
The halo of saintship, which later ages placed 
upon them, obscures their features, and makes us 
see them dimly as great and good and far removed 
from ourselves. Let us look at them without such 
disguise as they stand before Jesus. 

First, of course, is Peter. He was always first, 
—impulsive, energetic, acting before he thought 
and repenting afterwards. If Jesus asked a ques- 
tion, Peter was ready with an answer, wise or 
otherwise; if Jesus came walking on the water, 
Peter scrambled over the side of the boat to walk 
on the water too; if the risen Christ was seen 
standing on the shore, Peter could wait neither to 
row the boat to the land nor to put on his coat 
before he hastened to His side. Peter may have 
been, as tradition says, the oldest of the Twelve, 
he certainly was always the foremost of them. 
Simon was his name; but our Lord, reading his 


64 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


character, called him Peter, a stone. The appella- 
tion fitted him so exactly that it became his cus- 
tomary name; men called him “Stone,” just as 
Thomas Jackson was called Stonewall Jackson, 
until they almost forgot that he had another name. 
The best analysis of Peter’s character is that 
which Dr. Hitchcock gives. “He was a man of 
great natural audacity and force; coarse, homely, 
rugged, stout, tenacious, powerful, of that class of 
men, not large, who break down old walls and 
bring in new ages. And yet a man of variable 
impulses and changeful moods. Under strong ex- 
citement he stood firm as a granite rock. Hence 
his surname, Peter. But the quick heat might be 
quickly chilled. And then the granite crumbled: 
the rock became a sand-heap. His judgment could 
not always be trusted. His feelings would some- 
times snatch the bit and run away with him. His 
greatest strength was sometimes his greatest weak- 
ness. His large, warm heart overmastered him. 
It was hard for him to be parted from his friends. 
It was hard for him to go against the wishes and 
opinions of his associates. Even those with whom 
he might be casually in contact had undue power 
over him, not from lack of positive convictions of 
his own, but because his great, hungry heart 
craved sympathy and fellowship. He wanted men 
to think well of him and feel kindly towards him. 
An overweening love of approbation was his one 
great weakness. And so he lay, as such men al- 


MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 65 


ways do, very much at the mercy of his com- 
panions and his circumstances. John’s heart was 
a lodestone that pointed always steadily to the 
pole. Peter’s heart was a lodestone easily dis- 
turbed and shaken. Of physical courage he had 
no lack. In his rough, plebeian mold he was the 
very incarnation of it. It was boiling in his veins;' 
it was stamped upon his brow; it sounded in his 
tread. But in moral courage, that immeasurably 
finer and rarer sort, he was sadly deficient.” 

Peter’s brother was Andrew. He was the man 
of practical, shrewd, ingenious mind,—the Yankee 
of the Twelve. Somebody says that Andrew was 
the man who was always finding things. He, to- 
gether with John, was the first to find the Christ. 
When the Baptist said of the mysterious stranger, 
“Behold the Lamb of God,’ Andrew conceived 
the idea of following Him and finding where He 
abode. Andrew was the first to find another dis- 
ciple for Jesus, hunting up his brother Simon with 
the news, “‘ We have found the Messiah.” He was 
the man who found the boy with the five loaves 
and two fishes, when the afternoon was drawing 
to a close, and supper began to be an important 
question. He was the man whom Philip consulted 
when doubting whether to introduce the Greeks 
to Jesus; Andrew’s advice was likely to be good 
on any such practical question. A very useful 
man, Andrew, an excellent man for a church 
officer. 


66 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


Then came James and John, the two sons of 
Zebedee. Apparently their social position was 
higher than that of the others. They were ac- 
quaintances, perhaps kindred, of the high-priest;' 
they seem to have been specially intimate with the 
prominent family of Bethany; before they fol- 
lowed Jesus they had their own servants; and, 
later on, their mother was one of the women who 
ministered unto Him with her substance. Yet it 
was not their position but their disposition that 
made them prominent among the Twelve. Boan- 
erges, Sons of Thunder, so Christ called them; 
passionate, impetuous, full of fire and zeal. We 
remember they wanted to work a miracle of de- 
‘struction upon the Samaritan village which refused 
to receive their Master. We remember they 
sought seats closest to Christ when He should 
come into His kingdom, and were sure that they 
were able to drink of His cup and be baptized 
with His baptism. Their mother joined with them 
when they made this request, and they seem to 
have inherited their natures from her. James was 
the elder, and for a time the leader of the two; 
but his fiery nature early found a martyr’s grave. 
John was probably the youngest of the Twelve,— 
the boy disciple. That fact should be borne in 
mind in the study of his life. I think it was one 
reason why Christ showed him such marked af- 
fection, making him forever distinguished as the 


MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 67 


disciple whom Jesus loved. And the ardour of his 
own nature, reciprocating that affection, made him 
pre-eminently the disciple who loved Jesus. Per- 
haps it was because he came to Christ so young 
that he grew more Christlike than the rest. We 
say that the heart of Jesus is to be found in the 
Gospel of John. Is it not because the heart of 
John was thus early given to Jesus? 

Peter and Andrew, James and John form the 
great quartette,—the four whose names head each 
list of the apostles, and whose lives came into 
closest contact with that of the Master. 

First in the second four is Philip. He was a 
fellow-townsman of Peter and Andrew; and of his 
first call it is noted that Jesus found him, as if the 
Lord had been specially looking for him. Perhaps 
Philip otherwise would not have found Jesus; for 
he was slow and cautious, a thoughtful man, care- 
ful and hesitating, a great contrast to Peter and 
the Sons of Thunder. We may know his charac- 
ter from the prudent way in which he went to con- 
sult Andrew when the Greeks wanted him to in- 
troduce them to Jesus. Peter would have rushed 
them into the Master’s presence or driven them 
away, as the mood happened to be uppermost. 
Not so Philip; he would first talk it over with 
Andrew. We can see his turn of mind in the ex- 
actness with which he tells Nathanael that they 
have found the Christ: ‘“ We have found him of 


68 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, 
Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” There it 
is, all summed up and logically set forth; Philip 
has thought the whole through, and is putting it 
in his usual exact form. But the most amusing 
illustration of Philip’s nature is in connection with 
the feeding of the five thousand. I fancy I can 
see a gleam of mirth in the eye of Jesus as he calls 
Philip to Him and asks, ‘‘ Whence are we to buy 
bread that these may eat?” Jesus knows ex- 
actly what He is going to do; but He cannot re- 
sist the inclination to put just that question to 
the logical, precise, unimaginative Philip. And 
Philip takes it in all seriousness, figures out the 
problem, and answers with his usual exactness, 
“Two hundred shillings’ worth of bread is not 
sufficient for them, that every one may take a 
little.’ A good man, Philip; a most worthy dis- 
ciple; but tediously prosaic and matter-of-fact 
sometimes. I wonder how he felt, after all his 
mathematical calculation, when he saw Christ 
break the loaves and spread the feast before the 
multitude! 

The sixth apostle was Bartholomew. Probably 
he was the same as Nathanael,—Bar means son; 
so his full name would be Nathanael, the son of 
Talmai. Identifying him with Nathanael, we have 
a clear picture of his character in his first meeting 
with Jesus. He was from Cana of Galilee. Tradi- 


MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 2 LOS 


tion has it that he was the groom to whose mar- 
riage Jesus was invited, though it seems improb- 
able that he would be with John the Baptist only 
three days before the wedding. His reply to 
Philip, ‘“‘Can any good thing come out of Naza- 
reth? ”, has often been quoted to prove that 
Nazareth bore a bad reputation. There is no other 
proof; and Nathanael’s words simply refer to the 
fact that, as we know from other sources, no 
prophet was expected to appear in Galilee (John 
7:52), and Bethlehem was recognized by Scrip- 
ture students as the promised birthplace of the 
Messiah (Matt. 2:5). His question reveals his 
humility and also his knowledge of the Scriptures. 
Christ’s own words concerning Nathanael, ‘“ Be- 
hold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile,” are 
the highest praise He ever gave of any man un- 
less it be John the Baptist. By it we know how 
pure and transparent the heart of Nathanael must 
have been, “in whom was no doublemindedness, 
impure motive, pride or unholy passion; a man of 
gentle and meditative spirit in whose mind heaven 
lay reflected like the blue sky in a still lake on a 
calm summer day.” When we think how much 
of duplicity and ostentation there is in most men, 
even in Christians, we long to meet Nathanael, the 
son of Talmai, and refresh ourselves with his 
transparent truthfulness. 

Thomas is an apostle of whom we would know 


70 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


merely his name, were it not for John’s gospel; 
but three incidents therein recorded place him be- 
fore us plainly. Thomas was the man who looked 
on the dark side of life, the perpetual prophet of 
misfortune. He could not help it: the sunshine 
was always dim because his eyes were defective. 
Thomas loved his Master just as warmly as did 
the others; but he daily expected that disaster was 
going to overtake Him and them. When Jesus 
said He was going to Bethany to the grave of 
Lazarus, Thomas was sure the journey would end 
in His death; yet he said to the others, “ Let us 
also go, that we may die with him.” When Jesus 
at the Last Supper, speaking of going to prepare 
them a place in His Father’s house, said, ‘‘ Whither 
I go, ye know the way,’ it was Thomas who in- 
terrupted, “Lord we know not whither Thou 
goest; how know we the way?” He would like 
to know and follow, but the whole matter is dis- 
couragingly mysterious to him. And when, after 
the resurrection, the disciples tell him they have 
seen the Lord, he is sure they have allowed their 
fancies to cheat them; the news is too good to 
be true; he must see for himself, and apply 
sterner tests before he can believe. His doubt did 
not spring from unwillingness to believe but from 
despondency. There are men like Thomas in 
every church. They are interested in its welfare, 
ready to work for it; but always they can see 


MOUNT OF THE TWELVE G1 


nothing but failure ahead. They are fearful that 
new converts will not hold out, that new measures 
are a mistake. They are doubtful, sometimes 
about their own salvation, sometimes about the 
sincerity of other Christians. They hesitate and 
jament and prophecy disaster, and refuse to ac- 
cept the cheering statements of their brethren, 
until only our recognition of their constitutional 
infirmity and of their sincere love keeps us from 
losing all patience with them. How Peter and 
Thomas got along together is a problem. I fancy 
they mutually respected each other, and journeyed 
apart. 

Levi Matthew or Matthew Levi was the pub- 
lican. ‘That signifies much. While his business 
was not necessarily dishonest, it was generally fol- 
lowed by rascals and was always odious. Of all 
the men whom Jesus chose to be apostles, the 
choice of Matthew must have caused most scan- 
dal. We know how it stirs up a modern com- 
munity when some publican is received into the 
church; all the Pharisees draw away, and the 
scribes shake their heads, and Jerusalem is in a 
hubbub. But Matthew was earnest and honest. 
He had heard of Jesus; and the moment he was 
called, he forsook all and followed Him. The old 
life was abandoned, the new life accepted; and 
that was all Jesus demanded. He came to call 
sinners, and Matthew claimed to be nothing other. 


72 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


Woe to any church so sanctimonious that it can- 
not receive into its membership the vilest man, the 
lowest woman, who honestly forsakes sin and 
wishes to follow Christ! Matthew was a useful 
disciple. He had learned human nature, and he 
turned his knowledge to good account. When he 
wished his fellow publicans to hear Jesus, how 
did he go to work to bring it about? Send them 
an invitation to attend the synagogue on a cer- 
tain morning when Jesus was going to preach? 
Not at all. Those publicans could not be coaxed 
nor driven nor dragged into the synagogue; they 
never came to its services and purposed not to 
come. Neither would they come to a prayer meet- 
ing, if Matthew should arrange for one in his own 
house. ‘The very mention of a prayer meeting 
would so scare them that you could not get within 
speaking distance of them for a month. Ah no! 
Matthew understood these publicans; he had been 
one himself. So he made a feast, and invited 
them to that; and they came,—every publican in 
Capernaum. And then, when they had eaten a 
good dinner, and felt generally comfortable and 
complaisant, and had lost all suspicion of sermon 
or prayer meeting, Matthew knew that they would 
listen to Jesus. Matthew is the disciple who 
knows how to use worldly wisdom in Christ’s 
service. 

Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew,— 
these make up the second four of the twelve. The 


MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 3 


third four, excepting the last, are little more to 
us than names. There was James the son of Al- 
pheus, whom Mark calls James the Little to dis- 
tinguish him from the greater James, the son of 
Zebedee. There was his brother, Judas (not 
Iscariot), who seems to have had two other names, 
Lebbeus and Thaddeus, so that we may call him 
the three-named disciple. There was Simon the 
Cananzan, whose name does not mean that he be- 
longed to Canaan but that he was a Zealot. The 
Zealots formed a Jewish party that hated the 
Romans with special bitterness, and on one oc- 
casion rose in rebellion when a census was being 
taken for the purpose of assigning taxes. To see 
Simon among the Twelve would certainly make 
the Romans suspect that Jesus was planning a 
revolt.. Simon was the tax-hater, even as Mat- 
thew was the tax-gatherer; the two men had come 
from opposite extremes to follow Jesus side by 
side. 

Last of the number in every list is Judas, whose 
name is always coupled with the term, traitor. 
The study of his complex character with its pos- 
sibilities of good, as indicated by the fact that 
Jesus chose him to be one of the Twelve, and with 
its increasing abandonment to evil, would require 
more space than we can here afford. But note 
the significance of the name, Iscariot. Ish means 
man, and Kerioth is a little town in Judea (Josh. 
15:25); Judas was the man from Kerioth. He 


74 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


was the only apostle not a Galilean: that in itself 
would separate him from the rest. And in char- 
acter and training he doubtless was like the other 
Judeans: that would separate him still further. 
Unless by the power of love he could break down 
these barriers, he never could become one with 
his brethren. And love seems to have been lack- 
ing in his heart. The Messianic expectations that 
led him to become a disciple were erroneous; but 
so were those also of the other disciples. Peter 
and the rest were carried in safety through trying 
hours of disappointment by love to Jesus and to 
one another; but Judas did not love. So he fell 
away more and more until at last he went to his 
own place, covered with eternal infamy. 

Such were the twelve men who constituted the 
first Christian church, men of familiar types, men 
of like passions with ourselves. Each had his 
strong individuality; and the strength of the 
apostolate lay in their diversity of character. 
They never lost that diversity; and yet, as the 
years went by and they became stronger, holier 
men, they grew more like each other,—all except 
the traitor who walked apart. Peter grew less 
impulsive, and James less fiery; Thomas lost some- 
thing of his doubt, and Philip somewhat of his 
phlegm. It was because Christ was making them 
all more like Himself. It is the same change that 
His loving companionship works in those who fol- 


MOUNT OF THE TWELVE 15 


low Him to-day. Diverse, widely diverse, as we 
are by nature, we grow more like each other as 
we all grow more like Christ. Self disappears, 
and we are no longer Peter or James or Andrew, 
but we are apostles of the Lord. 


V 
THE MOUNT OF THE SERMON 


HE main work of Jesus in the Galilean 
ministry was public preaching and teach- 
ing. Mark begins his account of it, 
“Now, after that John was put in prison, Jesus 
came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the 
Kingdom of God”; and he says that on one oc- 
casion—and there were many like it—Jesus “ saw 
a great multitude of people, and He had compas- 
sion on them because they were as sheep not hav- 
ing a shepherd; and He began to teach them many 
things.” In the synagogues and in private houses, 
on the seashore and on the mountainside, wher- 
ever the people crowded to see and hear Him, He 
told them the good tidings of the Kingdom. John 
the Baptist was a voice crying in the wilderness; 
Jesus was the Great Teacher holding forth in the 
crowded market-place. 

Suppose that we had been among the audience 
who listened as He spoke to one of those Galilean 
throngs, what would we have noticed both in Him 
and in His words that would force us to declare, 
‘“‘ Never man spake like this man ’’? 

First, perhaps, the bearing of the Speaker. He 
is a young man, and gray-haired listeners with 


critical ears stand in the foremost row around 
76 


MOUNT OF THE SERMON CG 


Him. He is the son of a carpenter in an insig- 
nificant village, and here are rulers of synagogues 
and Roman officers and members of the San- 
hedrin. He has attended no school beyond the 
humble one in Nazareth, but now He must ad- 
dress rabbis who have studied for years at Jeru- 
salem. Nevertheless He shows no sign of em- 
barrassment or self-distrust or desire to win 
approval. On the other hand, there is no trace 
of self-conceit or arrogance. Just at this moment 
He is the foremost figure in Galilee. The people 
are thronging to Him; the scholars are discussing 
Him; King Herod is desirous to see Him. Yet 
Jesus in His bearing is as free from haughtiness 
as from servility. He is not indifferent to the 
opinions of men: His preaching thrills us with its 
earnest entreaty that they should believe Him and 
follow Him. But when He is treated with con- 
tempt and hatred, His sorrow is not for Himself 
but for those who reject His invitation and His 
message. What men think of Him is a matter of 
grave concern, solely because it vitally affects 
them. As He stands thus before them His very 
bearing proclaims, “I seek not mine own glory, 
and I receive not honour from men.” 

When He begins to speak, of whom does He 
remind us? How shall we describe Him to our 
friends at home? We can best answer that by 
asking others what they think of Him. The be- 
lief is widespread that He is one of the old 


78 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


prophets returned to earth again. Which one? 
Ask your neighbour on the right, and the answer 
is, “ He surely is Elijah. There is a glow of holy 
anger in His eye when He beholds iniquity, there 
is a ring of indignation in His voice when He de- 
nounces sin, there is a fearlessness in His attitude 
when enemies confront Him, that make me certain 
He is Elijah come from heaven to herald the Mes- 
siah.” ‘Turn to your neighbour on the left, and 
he says, “It seems to me that He is Jeremiah. 
Do you note the sadness of His face, the tender- 
ness of His tone, the sympathy He shows towards 
all suffering and trouble, and the love He has for 
our nation? This is Jeremiah, the prophet of sor- 
row.” <A third speaker interrupts, “‘ Nay, this is 
the prophet whom Moses foretold God would 
raise up like unto himself. Is he not indeed a 
second Moses, mighty in wisdom, leader of the 
people, one who has seen God face to face?” 
Such diverse answers, while they indicate the 
chief impressions that Jesus produced upon His 
hearers, show how impossible it is to give a com- 
plete description of His preaching. In His speech 
are blended perfectly all the force and feeling and 
wisdom and charm that other speakers display in 
varying degrees. He teaches, not as a man but 
as the Son of man. 

One thing about His teaching impresses all,— 
He speaks with authority and not like the scribes. 
A scribe, no matter how venerable and learned he 


MOUNT OF THE SERMON 79 


may be, puts forth his own opinion with qualifica- 
tions and reservations, and seeks to establish it by 
quoting others who have trodden the dark and 
difficult path of knowledge before Him. But Jesus 
calls no man master, and expects His hearers to 
believe His words simply because He Himself has 
uttered them. ‘The difference between the two is 
the difference between ‘‘ It hath been said by them 
of old time” and “I say unto you.” ‘The scribe 
is a seeker after truth; Christ is the truth. More 
than any other quality of His preaching, the note 
of authority must have attracted and amazed the 
people. As Arthur Hugh Clough puts it: 


“Across the sea, along the shore, 
In numbers more and ever more, 
From lowly hut and busy town, 
The valley through, the mountain down, 
What was it ye went forth to see, 
Ye silly folk of Galilee? 
The reed that in the wind doth shake? 
The weed that washes in the lake? 
The reeds that waver, the weeds that float >— 
A young man preaching in a boat. 


What was it ye went out to hear 

By sea and land, from far and near? 
A teacher? Rather seek the feet 

Of those who sit in Moses’ seat. 

Go, humbly seek and bow to them, 
Far off in great Jerusalem, 

From them that in her courts she saw, 
Her perfect doctors of the law. 

What is it ye came here to note ?— 

A young man preaching in a boat. 


80 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


A prophet? Boys and women weak 
Declare, or cease to rave, 

Whence is it he hath learned to speak? 
Say who his doctrine gave? 

A prophet? Prophet wherefore he 

Of all in Israel’s tribes? 

He teacheth with authority, 

And not as do the scribes.” 


Mark says that ‘‘the common people heard 
him gladly” (12:37), or we might translate it 
“the crowd heard Him with a relish.” As we 
listen we cannot wonder, for of all fascinating 
speakers He is chief. He is a master of style. 
In short, clear, crisp sentences, which rivet atten- 
tion and cling to memory, He sets forth His 
truths. There is nothing scholastic about His 
statements; the unlettered man or the child can 
grasp every word. Theology to-day is full of hard 
terms, but they were not taken from the teachings 
of Jesus. Paul is responsible for many of them; 
and Paul was a converted rabbi. Jesus was a man 
of the people, the common people; and He spoke 
to them in their own language. Nevertheless 
those same simple sentences, clearcut and full of 
light as precious gems, are often beyond our full 
comprehension. We talk about the obscure pas- 
sages in the Epistles; even Peter acknowledged 
that sometimes he found brother Paul “ hard to be 
understood.” But the obscurest things in Paul’s 
writings are easy to understand compared with the 
words of Christ. The difficulties in Paul arise 


MOUNT OF THE SERMON 81 


from incomplete statements, obscure logic, in- 
volved thought. The difficulties in Christ’s words 
arise from the marvellous amount of meaning they 
contain. They are simple but wondrously pro- 
found. They are like the clear water of a fathom- 
less mountain lake. You gaze far down into the 
depths but you cannot see the bottom. There is 
nothing to hinder except your own weak sight. 
The waters are like crystal, but they are too deep 
for your eyes. The world has been studying those 
simple words of Christ for nearly nineteen cen- 
turies, and yet their meaning is not exhausted. 
Concerning them we are ready to cry with St. 
Augustine of old, ‘Marvellous, O God, is the 
depth of Thy utterances; like a great sea their 
smiling surface breaks into ripples at the feet of 
our little ones, but into their unfathomable depths 
the wisest may gaze with a shudder of amazement 
and a thrill of love.” 

Jesus is also the master of illustrations. He 
finds them everywhere; for this world, made by 
His Father, is to Him in every part a revelation 
of that Father. So He does not hesitate to use 
the humblest, homeliest things to make clear the 
meaning of His greatest lessons. Where is the 
preacher to-day who would venture to compare 
himself to a hen, or would illustrate the need of 
persistency in prayer by a man who will not get | 
out of bed for fear of waking the babies beside 
him? Yet Jesus does not hesitate to do it. The 


82 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


farmer going forth to sow, the housewife sweeping 
the floor to find a lost bit of silver, the yeast 
placed in a measure of meal, the fish net, the old 
wineskin, the patched garment,—such common 
things are the means by which He makes the truth 
clear to His hearers. He uses illustrations con- 
stantly in His teaching, holding the attention of 
His audience, as we hold the attention of children, 
by showing them pictures. Often the illustration 
is given not in words but in acts, as when He 
washes His disciples’ feet to teach them humility. 
In fact, as a recent writer puts it, ‘“‘ We can say 
that the whole active work of Jesus was an ex- 
position of His teaching through His own ex- 
ample.” 

Most remarkable of ail His illustrations are the 
parables. Germs of parables,—brief sayings that 
might be developed into full parables,—are found 
scattered all through His teaching, giving it force 
and clearness. Such, for example, is His question, 
“What man is there of you who, if his son shall 
ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone?” Of 
the fully developed parables only about thirty 
have been preserved for us; but in the English 
language alone the number of volumes written 
about them mounts up into the hundreds. The 
prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the sower, the 
tares, the talents—how beautiful and wonderful 
these are! Where can you find anything like 
them? What cunning literary craftsman will un- 


MOUNT OF THE SERMON 83 


dertake to frame companions for them? And on 
the other hand, of what other man with similar 
mental gifts——were such a one anywhere to be 
found,—could it be said, ‘“ Throughout His re- 
corded discourses we never find that He has given 
free play to His fancy in order merely to please 
Himself and others or for the sake of showy em- 
bellishment. The one aim of Jesus in regard to 
style and method was to make His meaning plain, 
and show the importance of His ideas. ‘There- 
fore, He never used the arts of speech in order to 
beguile His hearers by too lightly carrying them 
over the difficulties of His teaching, or smoothing 
over offensive strictness.” 

Without dwelling longer on the manner of Jesus’ 
teaching, let us turn to the matter of it. His cen- 
tral theme during the Galilean ministry is the 
Kingdom of God. The people are full of confused 
and selfish ideas about it: He must make them un- 
derstand what it really is before He can offer Him- 
self to them as its King. Satan had suggested the 
opposite course,—that He first display His kingly 
power, and then, when men have accepted Him, 
reveal to them the nature of His Kingdom. Plau- 
sible but false! If men choose Him as their King, 
not knowing what He demands, their allegiance 
means nothing; and if they place Him upon the 
throne of their own base desires, they are really 
worshipping not Him but Satan. But can He 
make men know and seek the kingdom He longs 


84 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


to establish? That is the problem of the Galilean 
ministry. It remains a problem to-day. 

On that same mountain where He chose His 
apostles He placed before the multitude the pro- 
gram of His Kingdom in the address we call the 
Sermon on the Mount. So Matthew tells us; but 
Luke says that first He came down with the 
Twelve, and stood “on a level place” (6:17). 
We may remove this discrepancy by supposing the 
level place was that between the two knobs of the 
Horns of Hattin. Luke differs also from Matthew 
by assigning portions of the Sermon to other oc- 
casions when Jesus addressed a multitude. Prob- 
ably he is right, and Matthew placed together and 
arranged the sayings because he recognized that 
they all bore upon questions such as the hearers 
on the Mount were asking. Whenever men lis- 
tened to Him about the Kingdom, they must have 
asked, What is it? Who will be in it? What 
are its laws and its lifep The Sermon on the 
Mount is Jesus’ answer,—His royal proclamation 
to the world. In it we have the substance of what 
He taught the people of Galilee. Deeper lessons 
were to be given the Twelve,—lessons concerning 
the cup and the cross; but the time for these was 
not yet. 

He begins the Sermon by stating who are mem- 
bers of the Kingdom or, more exactly, how they 
may be known. As a man born into the Jewish 
kingdom is known by the fleshly mark of circum- 


MOUNT OF THE SERMON 85 


cision; so a man, who by the new birth has become 
a member of the Kingdom of God and shares its 
blessedness, is known by a spiritual mark, set 
forth in the Beatitudes,—humility, sorrow over sin, 
meekness, yearning after righteousness, merciful- 
ness, purity of heart, pacificness, endurance of 
persecution for righteousness’ sake. The passive 
and the active virtues alike are recognized in these 
eight Beatitudes: there is a place in the Kingdom 
for all loyal subjects, both those whose obedience 
is shown chiefly in bringing their own spirits into 
harmony with the spirit of Jesus, and those who 
labour and suffer to make the world what He 
would have it be. Notice that the marks differ, 
and the blessedness accompanying each is distinct 
in form. We might say that the Kingdom of God 
is here divided into eight provinces, all under one 
Lord and one law. This unity beneath diversity 
is not always recognized; and the result is jealousy 
or strife between the different subjects. Those 
who mourn over sin distrust the beatific visions of 
the pure in heart; and those who rejoice in perse- 
cution denounce the peacemakers as traitors. We 
are reminded of the feeling between the Thirteen 
States when first they were joined in lasting union. 
It seems strange to-day to read how Virginia 
doubted the loyalty of New York, and Massachu- 
setts thought her interests clashed with those of 
the Carolinas. It will seem more strange some 
day to read of the present jealousies and dissen- 


86 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


sion between the different provinces of the King- 
dom of God. 

Knowing who the subjects of the Kingdom are, 
we next are told what they are to do. Briefly, 
they are to save their fellow-men. Sin works cor- 
ruption: “ Ye are the salt of the earth” to check 
it. Evil covers the world like a black cloud: 
“Ye are the light of the world” to dispel it. 
Nothing is said about entering the Kingdom to 
save oneself. ‘That result is brought about, but 
almost incidentally; it is not the chief thing to be 
sought. The sailor on a merchant vessel is car- 
ried from New York to Calcutta; but the reason 
why he shipped was not that he might be trans- 
ported to the antipodes but that he might help 
bring the precious cargo thither. The Christian 
does gain eternal life; but it is given him that he 
may become a well-spring of life to others. Salt 
that is tasteless might as well be white sand; and 
a candle not burning is as useful under a bushel as 
on a stand. 

Now concerning the law of the new Kingdom, 
—for every kingdom must have a law—what rela- 
tion does it bear to the law given by Moses? 
There must have been among Christ’s hearers, not 
only men who magnified the Mosaic law and op- 
posed the least change in it, but also men who were 
groaning under its exactions and looking for the 
day when the prophet, whom Moses had foretold, 
should appear and abolish it. Christ’s declaration 


MOUNT OF THE SERMON 87 


disappointed both. To the one He said, “ The 
righteousness of My Kingdom must exceed that 
of the scribes and Pharisees ”’; to the other, ‘‘ Not 
one jot or tittle of the law is to pass away.” The 
old law could not be abolished, for it is a declara- 
tion of the will of God; and the will of God, being 
eternal, is changeless. Nevertheless in all of God’s 
handiwork there is the contrast between the out- 
ward manifestation which is fleeting, and the inner 
reality which is permanent. The form changes, 
the substance persists. The ceremonial law is 
lifted from the Jerusalem which is in Judea to the 
Jerusalem which is above; and the moral law is 
heard no longer in the thunders of Sinai but in the 
gentle voice of the Great Teacher. 

The Mosaic law is not to pass away but to be 
fulfilled. And what is fulfilment? The Pharisees 
said, ‘It is literal and strict obedience to every 
command, even the smallest.” And they toiled 
unceasingly in this dreary bondage. Jesus said, 
“Tt is filling full,—bring forth all that lies hidden 
in the law, as the great and stately oak is brought 
forth from the acorn.”’ Development is fulfilment. 
The law of Moses seemed as hard and lifeless as 
the granite on which it was written. The scribes 
guarded it jealously, and stored it in a coffer made 
out of traditions, and gave more thought and 
honour to the coffer then to its contents. Jesus 
treated this same law as a living seed, and plant- 
ing it within the heart made it spring up into the 


‘ 


88 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


beautiful flower of Christian obligation. I need 
not point out the way in which He took its various 
commands, and showed how they are to be trans- 
formed into laws for His Kingdom through the 
vital force of love which is hid within them. The 
law has not passed away; it has grown vastly 
greater and more difficult, since obedience is no 
longer of outward form but of inward spirit. 
Keeping the commands of Moses is child’s play 
compared with keeping the commands of Jesus. 
He set the standard in a single sentence, “ Be ye 
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in 
heaven is perfect.” In contrast with this the 
“Thou Shalt” and “Thou shalt not” of the 
Decalogue are petty precepts. We listen and cry, 
“Who is sufficient for these things? ” 

While the multitude were still filled with amaze- 
ment at this new Law-giver who, with a superior- 
ity that was either the level of divinity or the 
height of conceit, prefaced each command with, 
“Ye have heard that it was said, but I say unto 
you,” Jesus began next to speak of the daily life 
in His Kingdom. Religious duties,—almsgiving, 
prayer, fasting,—will not be abolished; but their 
value will depend wholly upon the spirit-in which 
they are performed. ‘They are matters first and 
mainly between ourselves and God; and desire for 
man’s approval must not be allowed to influence 
them. The charity that trumpets forth its gift; 
the prayer that by length and loudness calls at- 


MOUNT OF THE SERMON 89 


tention to our intercourse with heaven; the fasting 
that stalks the streets with dismal countenance 
and unkempt hair,—these are not intended for 
God: they are endeavours in the guise of religion 
to win favour and fame from men. True, Jesus 
told us to let our light shine; but it is one thing 
to be seen to do good, and quite another to do 
good to be seen. A reputation for saintliness is 
profitable in certain earthly ways, and the man 
who is pious that he may gain glory of men, verily 
he has his reward. Let him rest satisfied with it, 
and not fancy that also he gains favour with God. 
We can lay up treasure on earth or in heaven; we 
cannot do both. We can serve God with our 
whole heart, or we can just as heartily serve mam- 
mon; but if we think to be faithful to both, we 
are attempting the impossible. 

So, too, in our daily toil—for the subjects of 
Christ’s Kingdom are to bear their part in the 
world’s work: life is not to be all almsgiving with- 
out money getting, all entering into the closet 
without entering into the workshop, all Fastdays 
with no Thanksgivings,—in our daily toil there 
is to be like singleness of mind. Jesus said, “ Take 
no thought for your life.”” The Revised Version 
translates it “ Be not anxious.” A still better and 
more exact translation is “‘ Be not distracted;”— 
that is, don’t have a mind drawn two ways at 
once,—thinking of God and thinking also of self. 
The ravens have no anxiety, they look to God 


90 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


for food and accept what He sends. The lilies are 
not distracted; they put forth leaf and bud and 
blossom with the single purpose of glorifying God 
with their beauty. But man, in his wonderful 
mingling of power and weakness, is ever distracted 
and full of worry,—looking to God for food, yet 
fancying it all depends upon his own exertions; 
seeking to do his heavenly Father’s will, and at 
the same time to please himself. No wonder life 
is hard. If we could take everything into our own 
hands, and leave God out, life would be simple. 
If we would commit everything to God, and leave 
self out, life would be simple. But so long as we 
cannot do all things ourselves, and will not trust 
all to God, so long we are doomed to be torn asun- 
der between hope and fear, conscious strength and 
conscious weakness. Rest in a Father’s care. We 
have our needs, few or many; but He knows them 
all. There may be evils in the morrow; but He 
alone controls the morrow. And concerning the 
evils of to-day, there are just sufficient,—not one 
too many, not one too few,—for the best good of 
His children. 

Still another great class of duties is those to our 
fellow-man. Concerning these Jesus lays down 
three simple but comprehensive rules. First, avoid 
censoriousness. Judgments are blunderbusses 
more dangerous to the man who fires them, than 
to the one at whom he aims. As quaint old 
Quarles puts it, “ He that cleanseth a blot with 


MOUNT OF THE SERMON ~ 91 


blotted fingers, makes only a greater blur.” Sec- 
ond, use discrimination; don’t feed swine with 
pearls. There is a fitness of time and place and 
mood for the holy things we wish to impart. Oc- 
casions are not always opportunities. When a 
man is rushing to catch an express train I wouldn’t 
stop him to bestow a tract on profanity. And 
third, in all difficult labours among men, remem- 
ber that the source of strength and wisdom is God. 
Ask Him, and it shall be given. “ Therefore,”— 
and here, says Luther, Our Lord sums up His in- 
struction concerning our duties to our fellow-man 
into a little bundle which every man can put into 
his bosom and easily carry along with him,—“ all 
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law 
and the prophets.” 

With this, the Golden Rule, Christ ends the de- 
scription of His Kingdom. ‘There remain only 
some solemn words of warning concerning the 
difficulty of entering into it, and the danger from 
false guides whose words sound well, but whose 
works belie them; and finally the two parables of 
the house upon the rock and the house upon the 
sand.” ‘“ And it came to pass when He had ended 
these sayings, that the people were astonished at 
His teaching.” Can we wonder at their astonish- 
ment? The world has had the Sermon on the 
Mount before it for eighteen centuries: has it 
begun to take it as the guide of daily life? The 


92 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


world admires it. Many a man, assailing the 
church, declares, ‘“‘'The Sermon on the Mount is 
all the sermon I care for: the Golden Rule is re- 
ligion enough for me.” But do we ever meet a 
man who can honestly say, ‘I follow the Sermon 
on the Mount; I live up to the Golden Rule’? 
Ah! that sermon is the ideal and the despair of 
human living! The more we strive to obey it, the 
more we recognize our frequent failure, and seek 
the Master for His forgiveness and help. And 
yet,—what a world this might be, if only we did 
fashion it as Christ commanded us. What a world 
this will be, when the Kingdom of God is fully 
established, and the Sermon on the Mount is the 
law of all human life. 


VI 
THE MOUNT OF THE MIRACLE 


nence he deserves: he is lost in the glory of 

his cousin, the Nazarene. Had he stood fur- 
ther away,—among the Old Testament prophets 
to whom he belongs,—we might have gazed upon 
him long and admiringly; but now, after a hasty 
glance, we turn to behold the Lamb of God whom 
he pointed out. Who stops to look at the herald 
when the king is at hand? 

A study of John’s course reveals how at every 
step he was the forerunner of the Messiah. The 
beginning of his life forms a date for the begin- 
ning of the life of Jesus (Luke 1:26). His voice 
in the Wilderness summons Jesus from the work- 
shop at Nazareth to receive John’s baptism and 
that of the Holy Ghost. He points out the Mes- 
siah to his disciples, and they are the first to ac- 
knowledge and follow Him. His imprisonment is 
the signal to begin the Galilean ministry, which 
opens with his own great message, “‘ Repent, for 
the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” And his 
death, a few months later, is recognized by Jesus 


to foreshadow His own: ‘“ Elijah is come already, 
93 


ic the Baptist is seldom given the promi- 


94. MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


and they knew him not, but did unto him what- 
soever they would; even so shall the Son of man 
also suffer of them.” As the wicked husbandmen 
have slain the servant, so they will slay the Son; 
and the work in Galilee must be brought to a close, 
that in the time remaining before His death, Jesus 
may have leisure and quiet for training the 
Twelve. 

It is hard to realize how crowded the Galilean 
days were, and, in particular, how unceasing was 
the demand for miracles. Fortunately we have 
the record of one twenty-four hours, from which 
we can infer what the others must have been. 
Jesus is in Capernaum on the Sabbath; and, like 
all devout Jews, goes to the synagogue for the 
morning service. After the Scriptures are read, 
He is invited to speak to the people. His address 
makes a deep impression, though more by the au- 
thority with which He speaks than by what He 
says. A demoniac interrupts Him with wild cries 
and breaks up the service, whereupon He casts out 
the unclean spirit and all are amazed. Then He 
goes to the house of Peter; where, finding his 
mother-in-law sick with a fever, He heals her. 
The fame of these deeds spreads through the city; 
and as soon as sunset removes the Sabbath re- 
strictions, the house is surrounded by an eager 
crowd who have brought their sick and demonized 
for healing. He heals many. The next morning, 
rising long before daybreak, He goes out into a 


‘}AeoYy Uelystayy AAI 0} 
Ivap woy} suryeu ‘sajqeied pue sapoeiru jo yuonboya ase axe, [N}FlNesq sty} JO saroys pue si9jeM IT, 


aLTITTVD tO VAS AHL 








MOUNT OF THE MIRACLE 95 


lonely place to pray. Sunrise finds a fresh throng 
at Peter’s door waiting for the Great Physician. 
The disciples search Him out, and tell Him of 
this; but He, not wishing to have His ministry 
turned into a mere exercise of miraculous power, 
refuses to return to the city, and goes on with them 
to the next town. Thus the work continues day 
after day in repeated circuits of Galilee. 

Some writers refuse to accept the gospel record 
of Jesus’ miracles, dismissing them as a later in- 
vention; but then there is a little left to be ac- 
cepted, for miracles are inextricably woven into 
the whole account of His public ministry. Other 
writers reject all but His acts of healing, and ex- 
plain these as wrought by an unusual yet purely 
natural power of the mind upon the body; but 
again the record has to be revised and sadly 
mutilated to support this position. ‘Those who 
were eyewitnesses of what Jesus did, and have 
preserved the account for us, had no doubt that 
He wrought real miracles. And for those who ac- 
cept the Christian idea of God, and find in the 
character and teachings and influence of Jesus 
sufficient proof that He was the Son of God, the 
miracles are not a stumbling-block,—they are an 
harmonious part of His whole supernatural life 
and work. There was need that He should work 
miracles, and He had both the ability and the de- 
sire to work them. Like His words they were a 
revelation of the love and sympathy of His Father, 


96 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


and a proclamation of the nature of His King- 
dom. <A miracle wrought for selfish ends or 
merely to display His power, would be in direct 
contradiction to what He was teaching; but He 
wrought none such. As Principal Fairbairn says, 
“The motives that moved Him to speak, moved 
Him also to action; compassion in each case ruled 
His will. The men that most profoundly touched 
His sympathies were the publicans and sinners on 
the one side, and the diseased and possessed on 
the other; and as their sorrows drew Him to them, 
His gracious and quickening sympathy drew them 
to Him. He had come to be the physician of the 
sick, to seek and save the lost. It had been said 
that the days of the Messiah were to be days 
of health and happiness, and He fulfilled the 
prophecy. In relieving suffering He was over- 
coming sin. His acts of healing were victories 
over the devil. By them He confirmed faith, cast 
out Satan, conquered evil and created peace by 
creating one of its most essential conditions. If 
we interpret His works through His words, we can 
see how beautifully significant and ideal they 
were, the symbols of the Messiah and His age 
coming with hopeful and happy health to sick and 
wasted humanity.” 

It is well for us to remember that the miracles, 
simple and natural though they were to Jesus, cost 
Him effort and caused exhaustion. The healing 
of the woman who had the issue of blood shows 


MOUNT OF THE MIRACLE 97 


this. When she touched the hem of His garment 
and was made whole, immediately Jesus perceived 
that virtue had gone out of Him. The miracle 
was a drain which He felt within Himself. This 
is not to be wondered at. Christ’s work of salva- 
tion was wrought by substitution; He saved from 
sickness, as He saved from sin, by suffering in our 
stead. “ Himself took our infirmities, and bare 
our sicknesses.”’ It was no easy work, this daily 
task of healing. Often it left Jesus at the close 
of the day so weary and exhausted that He had 
to hide away from the throng of needy suppliants, 
and seek rest and renewed strength in communion 
with His Father. 

Largely as a result of the miracles in Galilee, 
Jesus’ popularity soon became boundless. Before 
the months were ended, every village and hamlet 
had heard of Him or been visited by Him. His 
fame penetrated to the court of Herod the tetrarch; 
and a report of His doings spread throughout 
Palestine and all the surrounding region. Men 
glorified God, saying, “It was never so seen in 
Israel: a great prophet is risen among us: God 
hath visited His people.” To a superficial ob- 
server it must have seemed that all the people 
were becoming disciples of Jesus, and that His 
Kingdom would soon be established. We can 
imagine how Peter and John rejoiced, and how 
Judas chuckled in selfish satisfaction thinking 
that, as now he was purser for the Twelve, he soon 


98 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD f 


would hold the lucrative position of treasurer in 
the new kingdom. 

The Galilean ministry promised much; but like 
the flaunting leaves of the barren figtree, its 
promise was delusive. Followers of Jesus were 
not lacking; they came in crowds, filling the 
streets when He entered a city, forcing their way 
into a house when they knew that He was within, 
following Him like a triumphal procession as He 
journeyed from village to village, pouring forth 
in search of Him when He withdraw to a desert 
place. But their following was not prompted by 
a desire to hear His words or to learn about His 
Kingdom; what they craved was either to be 
healed themselves or to watch with wonder while 
He healed others and cast out demons. The 
miracles were, indeed, full of divine meaning; but 
the beholders failed to grasp it because they 
treated them simply as marvels. When He turned 
from working miracles to teaching, their interest 
at once began to flag; and they interrupted His 
discourse with foolish questions and comments, or 
tried to turn Him from teaching by forcing upon 
His notice more supplicants for healing. The 
seed He sowed fell upon shallow soil, and His 
popularity though great was most superficial. 

Steadily opposing Jesus and seeking to under- 
mine His influence were the Pharisees. From 
their headquarters in Jerusalem they watched His 
work and sent their emissaries to counteract it. 


MOUNT OF THE MIRACLE 99 


They recognized that His influence with the peo- 
ple would destroy their own, that if they were to 
be looked upon as saints He must be branded a 
sinner; so their vigilance never lessened, their 
slanderous tongues never ceased. In Judea it had 
been an easy matter for them to overcome Him 
because in Judea Pharisaism was supreme. In 
Galilee, where the people were liberal-minded and 
had less reverence for the Law, this was not so 
easy. Nevertheless, means were at hand to ac- 
complish their purpose. That He was performing 
notable miracles could not be denied; they did not 
attempt to deny it. But they insisted that the 
character of the miracles must be determined by 
the character of the man who did them. In this 
they were perfectly right: Moses himself had pre- 
scribed this test (Deut. 13:1 f.). You and I in- 
sist upon it still. There is not a decade in the 
present century in which there does not arise some 
one who claims to be a special agent of God with 
supernatural powers. And in passing on his 
claim, the first thing we look at is his life and 
teachings. If they are impure and full of false- 
hood, we are bound to reject him, no matter what 
miracles he seems to work; for it is impossible 
that falsehood and impurity should be of God. 
God cannot deny Himself. 

The Pharisees, watching Jesus as He minis- 
tered, were convinced that He was a son of Satan. 
To their minds the proof was strong. They noted 


100 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


the readiness with which He mingled with publi- 
cans, outcasts, harlots, sinners,—people whom all 
devout men abhorred; the disregard He showed 
for fasting and washings and tithes and all the 
minute details of the Law and the traditions ac- 
cording to which man should serve God; the pub- 
lic claim He made of power to forgive sins,—a 
claim: most manifestly blasphemous, since forgive- 
ness belongs to God alone; and chief of all, the 
way in which He deliberately and persistently did 
that which it was not lawful to do on the Sabbath 
day. This last offence was the greatest; because 
the Sabbath was the special glory of every Jew, 
and its strict observance was deemed the most ac- 
ceptable of all offerings to Jehovah. 

The miracles of Jesus could not be denied; but 
if He so evidently was an emissary of Beelzebub, 
the miracles certainly were wrought through the 
power of Beelzebub. This was the argument of 
His enemies—not at all a weak one; and by con- 
stant repetition they spread it among the people. 
Wherever a group gathered about Him, they were 
in its midst, watching and whispering. The poison 
they scattered did not at first show its effects. 
The crowds followed Jesus just as before, and the 
favour of the listeners seemed undiminished. But 
curiosity was beginning to be less keen; and de- 
mands for healing were not as numerous, since 
already the chronic cases of disease and the lepers 
and demonized had largely been brought to Him. 


MOUNT OF THE MIRACLE 101 


The shallow, selfish desires that had gained Him 
a following were somewhat satisfied, and under- 
neath the gratitude of those whom He had healed 
there was a growing fear that they had been plac- 
ing themselves in contact with the powers of dark- 
ness. Evidently when popular thought and feel- 
ing were in this state a very sudden change from 
favour to opposition might arise at any hour. 

The crisis and turning point of the Galilean 
ministry came in connection with the feeding of 
the five thousand,—a miracle for this reason so 
important that it is told at length by all four evan- 
gelists. The twelve apostles had just returned 
from their first independent journey, elated with 
success but worn by their labours. The crowd 
around them at Capernaum was so great that there 
was no chance of any respite; and Jesus said unto 
them, ‘“‘Come ye yourselves apart into a desert 
place, and rest awhile.” That, I take it, is the 
great precedent for ministerial vacations; and the 
man who declares that the apostles did not need a 
vacation is still ignorant of the difference in nerv- 
ous wear and tear between preaching the gospel 
and chopping cordwood. But, as often happens 
nowadays, the preachers did not get their vacation 
after all. By the time they reached a desert place 
at the north end of the Lake the multitude was 
here also, and Jesus gave the whole day to heal- 
ing and teaching. When night came on, the apos- 
tles, saying one word for the others and two for 


102 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


themselves, suggested to their Master that He 
send the people away in search of food and lodg- 
ing for the night. Instead of this He performed 
a miracle of a new sort. He took five loaves and 
two dried fishes, which Andrew had found could 
be secured from a lad, and with them fed the 
multitude abundantly. At once there was great 
excitement. This was especially the sort of mira- 
cle these Galileans had been desiring; and any one 
who could do such things,—not only cure sick- 
ness but also provide food,—should be hailed as 
the promised Messiah. ‘ Jesus shall be our king,” 
they cried. ‘‘ No more illness, no more work, no 
more Roman taxes! King Jesus forever!” It 
looked for the moment as if they would even take 
Him by force, and make Him claim a throne. The 
Passover time was at hand, and these men were 
probably on their way to the feast. With Jesus 
heading the throng, they could transform the pil- 
grimage into a triumphal procession, swelling their 
numbers at every mile and pouring into the Holy 
City, an irresistible flood. Even the apostles felt 
the charm of such a program. Jesus had to set 
Himself against it quickly and sharply. He re- 
moved the Twelve from the temptation by forcing 
them to get into their boat and start most reluc- 
tantly for the other side, leaving Him behind. 
Then He dismissed the multitude; and, when they 
were slow in departing, He withdrew Himself 


MOUNT OF THE MIRACLE 103 


from them, suffering no one to follow Him, and 
went up into the mountain apart to pray. 

Can we imagine the thoughts of Jesus during 
the hours of that night as He communed with His 
Father? His work in Galilee had been a failure;) 
the shouts of the excited multitude, still ringing 
in His ears, showed that the Galileans, despite all 
His teachings, had not grasped the nature of His 
Kingdom nor felt any spiritual drawing toward 
Himself. All they wanted was bread and a Bread- 
king. He had hoped high things of them. If they 
were loyal, possibly Judea would be won over 
through their influence and example, and then the 
Sanhedrin would certainly accept Him; or, if 
Judea refused, Palestine would be divided relig- 
iously, as already it was politically, into two 
realms; and Galilee would become the center from 
which His gospel could be sent forth into all the 
world with the Galileans as its missionaries. 
Somewhere in that future work among Gentile 
lands the cross, of course, would await Him. 
Prophecy and His own spiritual insight declared 
that it was inevitable. “ Except a grain of wheat 
fall into the earth and die, it abideth alone; but, 
if it die, it beareth much fruit.” But up to the 
present hour nothing had indicated which was 
right,—the Psalmist who foretold that the Mes- 
siah’s death would be at the hands of the heathen, 
or Isaiah who declared that His own nation would 
put Him to death. Now there was no more un- 


104 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


certainty. And it was useless to labour longer 
with the Galileans. They would come on the mor- 
row, clamorous for more miracles of the same 
sort as yesterday, and when He denied them they 
would have no further use for Him, and would 
refuse to listen to His teaching. Perhaps even the 
Twelve might abandon Him, leaving Him as lonely 
as He was this night. He could bear the loneli- 
ness, for His Father was with Him; but that His 
own loved people should reject Him, should prove 
false to their high mission as a light to the world, 
and should bring to a miserable end all the na- 
tional hopes of the prophets and the promises of 
God,—this pierced Him to the heart. The billows 
of the Lake, which were tossing the disciples’ boat 
as they toiled in the darkness, were but an imper~ 
fect symbol of the waves and billows that went 
over His soul. The hour in the Mount was a fore- 
taste of Gethsemane. 

I need not rehearse the story of what followed 
that night of prayer. We remember how the 
Twelve cried out in terror when their Master came 
to them walking on the water in the grey mists of 
early morning; and how, when He had dispelled 
their fears, Peter was eager to imitate His mar- 
vellous feat. The lure of miracles still attracted 
them. We remember, too, how He greeted the 
multitude when, hungering still for loaves and 
fishes, they sought Him out in the synagogue at 
Capernaum. Never was He so enigmatic and un- 


MOUNT OF THE MIRACLE 105 


responsive. They talked about manna, such as 
Moses gave the children of Israel; and He an- 
swered, “I am the bread which came down out 
of heaven.” They murmured, “ Is not this Jesus, 
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we 
know? ”; and He said, “ The bread which I will 
give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” They 
strove among themselves saying, ‘‘ How can this 
man give us His flesh to eat? ”; and His response 
was, “‘ Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of 
man and drink his blood, ye have not life in your- 
selves.” They muttered in bitterness, “‘ This is 
a hard saying, who can hear it? ”’; and He an- 
swered, ‘‘ Does this cause you to stumble? What 
then if ye should behold the Son of man ascend- 
ing where He was before? ’”’ And at last, filled 
with rage because He refused to gratify their de- 
sires, and out of patience because they could not 
understand His strange replies, they threw Him 
over as no longer usable. ‘‘ From that time many 
of His disciples went back and walked no more 
with Him.” It was the close of the Galilean min- 
istry. Jesus performed a few more miracles be- 
cause the sick besought Him that they might 
touch if it were but the border of His garment: 
but He made no more attempt to teach the multi- 
tude. His work had proved fruitless: let it come 
to an end. It was not He that ended it, the peo- 
ple themselves had done so. 

The Galilean treatment of Jesus has been re- 


106 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


peated many a time in history. Followers have 
come to Him, urged by selfish desires, looking 
for easy bread and butter through profitable piety, 
fancying that religion is mainly a scheme for mak- 
ing men comfortable, counting the kingdom of 
heaven to be meat and drink; and they have 
found—yjust as the Galileans found—that Jesus of 
Nazareth will not meet their expectations, that the 
Father seeketh not such to serve Him, and that 
the Christ never says, “‘ Follow Me” to those who 
must be baited along as swine are led. The king- 
dom of heaven is righteousness, and peace and joy 
in the Holy Ghost. Those who hunger and thirst 
after these gifts shall be filled; but if a man has 
no craving for things spiritual, he will find sorry 
satisfaction in the feast Christ spreads before him. 
I never knew a person who went into religious 
work as a money-making matter, be he a preacher 
looking for a big salary, be he a merchant seeking 
for trade, be he a professional man desirous of 
drawing patronage, be he a politician with an eye 
for votes, be he a beggar anxious to feed on the 
charities of the church,—I never knew such a man 
who did not sooner or later give up his professed 
piety as emphatically a poor paying business. He 
may flourish on it for a little season, even as the 
Galileans did; but there comes a day when he 
finds that he must abandon either his discipleship 
or his dollars, and he says good-bye to Peter and 
John and their Master. 


MOUNT OF THE MIRACLE 107, 


Godliness is profitable for all things; but not 
profitable as the world reckons profit and loss. 
‘“‘ Give us this day our daily bread,” is a prayer 
Christ taught His disciples; but before we can use 
it, we must learn the truth with which He Him- 
self met and overcame the temptation to which the 
Galileans yielded,—‘‘ Man shall not live by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of 
the mouth of God.” 


Vil 
THE MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 


UTSIDE the borders of the Holy Land, 
() yet visible along the whole course of the 

Jordan even to the Dead Sea, Mount 
Hermon towers into the air nearly ten thousand 
feet, a three-peaked, rugged mass dominating the 
landscape. Snow lies upon its summit throughout 
the year, and from its foot gushes forth a great 
fountain of ice-cold water, one of the principal 
sources of the Jordan. -Beside this fountain in the 
days of Christ stood a famous sanctuary of the 
Greek god, Pan; and near by was the city which 
Philip, son of Herod the Great, built for himself 
and called Cesarea in honour of his emperor. 
From time immemorial a fortress crowned the 
cliff above the fountain, a stronghold used almost 
to modern days. It was a purely heathen land, 
this land of the Hermons, Here once the Psalm- 
ist, lonely, homesick and taunted by his neigh- 
bours, remembered with tears the far-off house of 
God and the joyous praises of the multitude keep- 
ing holyday. And here Jesus brought His dis- 
ciples “up into a high mountain apart by them- 


selves, and was transfigured before them.” That 
108 


Aep SNOIIO] Ss pure 
Mou B@ JO UMP JY} SUIJIEM JOUT}UIS B AI] ysed oy} Jo sumst oy} suowe spuejs jt Ihopu 216 Aiv}ILOS ul 


OWYHH LNNOW 











MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 109 


He took them to the snowy top of Hermon is im- 
probable; some lower point of the mass would 
give the solitude He desired. Here the snow 
gleaming in the moonlight above would accord 
with His garments “ glistening white”; and the 
fortress built upon the rock below, would echo the 
promise made to Peter just a week before, “ On 
this rock will I build my church ”’; while the song 
of the Psalmist would be a message of cheer to 
Himself, “ Why art thou cast down, O my soul, 
and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope 
thou in God; for I shall yet praise Him who is the 
help of my countenance and my God.” 

The first half of the closing year of Jesus’ public 
ministry was spiritually a season of suffering, and 
geographically a period of wandering. We find 
Him and the Twelve now on the borders of Tyre 
and Sidon, now at the headwaters of the Jordan 
around Czsarea Philippi, now across the Sea of 
Galilee in the regions of Decapolis, now going up 
to Jerusalem for one of the feasts, now coming to 
Capernaum again almost in secret. It is difficult 
to trace the course of these journeyings. Some- 
times even His friends do not know where Jesus 
has hid Himself; and His sudden reappearance 
takes them by surprise. His restlessness tells of 
Spiritual agitation and suffering. The Son of 
Mary is like a deer wounded by the huntsman’s 
arrow, that wanders to and fro bearing the fatal 
shaft in its side and seeking a place to die. The 


110 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


end is not yet, but it is surely coming. There is 
a work to be done first; “I must walk today and 
tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be 
that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.” But 
when the next Passover shall assemble the nation 
in the sacred city, the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world will there be sacrificed. 
One of the burdens that Christ has to bear 
throughout these last months is spiritual loneli- 
ness. His human heart craves sympathy, but 
none can sympathize because none understands. 
The Twelve remain with Him, held faithful by 
love, and He tries repeatedly to disclose to them 
what He is to suffer; but He tries in vain. Though 
He tells them in plain words that He must be 
crucified, they listen as to a difficult parable, the 
interpretation of which may presently be given 
them. That the cross is a literal instrument of 
crucifixion and the death an actual giving up the 
ghost, seem preposterous. ‘They will not enter- 
tain the thought for a moment: “ Be it far from 
thee, Lord!” They have seen the winds and waves 
obey their Master, disease and death flee baffled 
from His presence; surely it is not in the power 
of human foes to do Him harm. ‘ No man taketh 
my life from me ”—that much of the divine truth 
they are beginning to learn; but they are far from 
grasping the rest, ‘‘ I lay it down of myself.” The 
Messiah has come to deliver Israel; death would 
put an end to His work: therefore, death is a thing 


MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 111 


incredible, impossible. His words about the cross 
doubtless mean something mysteriously sad,—so 
sad that often He walks before them in silence, 
and they dare not interrupt His reverie; but the 
nature of His sadness they cannot comprehend. 
And so, despite their presence and love, He is 
forced to tread the winepress alone. 

Galilee still remained the home of Jesus, and 
Capernaum His city; nevertheless He was seldom 
there. Occasional miracles were wrought as the 
answer of unceasing love to individual cries of 
need; but they were accompanied with strict in- 
junctions to tell no man. The former tours of 
preaching from village to village were discon- 
tinued. Instead of seeking to draw the people 
around Him, Jesus seemed desirous to seclude 
Himself from them. Much of His time was spent 
away from the scene of His former labours in 
Jands where He could wander without attracting 
a curious, clamorous crowd at every turn. And 
even in these lands He took special pains to pre- 
vent His presence from being known. This has 
sometimes been explained as the result of Herod’s 
hostility, or of the increasing boldness of the emis- 
saries from Jerusalem. I see no reason for so re- 
garding it. He sought retirement because He 
wished to be alone, and not because He feared lest 
death might overtake Him prematurely. There 
was little reason for labouring longer among a peo- 
“ple to whom His labours were only an encourage- 


112 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


ment in false Messianic hopes and selfish dreams. 
The Galilean mission had been shown a failure; 
to continue it would be a waste of strength. And 
if the anguish of the cross was soon to come, was 
there not need of rest and solitude for a little sea- 
son before He bowed His shoulders to bear it? 

More than this, Jesus wished to devote these 
months in a special way to the apostles. They 
needed His care. As yet, although they had 
shared His labours and even been sent forth on a 
brief independent mission, they had advanced but 
little beyond the condition in which He found 
them at the first. They remained faithful when 
the crowd abandoned Him; but it was love and 
not knowledge that had kept them at His side. 
Their thought of the Messiah and His Kingdom 
was scarcely higher than that of those who would 
by force make Him their Bread-king. Up to the 
present hour the constant presence and pressure 
of the multitude had prevented Him from giving 
them personal instruction, save as sometimes a 
parable could be explained or a puzzling question 
answered in the scanty moments of privacy. If 
they were to take up His work and carry it for- 
ward when He was no longer visibly with them, 
they must receive special teaching and training. 
And for this He must take them where He and 
they could be constantly together without inter- 
ruption or need of reserve. 

The intimate association of Jesus with the 


MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 1138 


Twelve can be used as a strong argument against 
any denial of His divinity. His main purpose in 
taking them away from all others to be alone with 
Himself was to teach them that He was the Son 
of God; but unless this teaching were true, would 
not such familiarity be the surest way of exposing 
its falsity? ‘There have been men in all ages who 
claimed to be superhuman; but to maintain the 
claim they were compelled to throw a veil of 
secrecy over their ordinary life. We remember 
how Shakespeare makes Cassius scoff at Caesar’s 
pretensions simply because he knows him so inti- 
mately: 


“And this man 
Is now become a god; and Cassius is 
A wretched creature, and must bend his body, 
Jf Caesar carelessly but nod upon him. 
He had a fever when he was in Spain, 
And when the fit was on him, I did mark 
How he did shake; ’tis true this god did shake: 
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans 
Mark him and write his speeches in their books, 
Alas! it cried, ‘Give me some drink, Titinius,’ 
As a sick girl.” 


No man, says the old French maxim, is a hero 
to his valet. No man certainly can be thought 
a god by those who share his ordinary life. Yet 
Jesus took the Twelve into every part of His daily 
existence. They shared the feast when He miracu- 
lously fed the multitude; they dined with Him 
upon the broken remnants the following day, 


114. MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


They saw Him when He was full of strength and 
overflowing with energy, and again when He lay 
exhausted, buried in the sleep of great fatigue. 
They talked with Him when He was heavy-hearted 
and despondent, as well as when He was full of 
joy and hope. They mingled their voices with His 
in song; they listened in reverent silence while He 
prayed; they watched in wonder when He wept. 
In His company they journeyed along the dusty 
highways, they sailed the Sea of Galilee, they 
rested at noontime beneath some shady tree, they 
sat at night and watched the thickening stars, 
they went to the banquet in the rich man’s home 
and to the death chamber in the ruler’s house, they 
worshipped in the synagogue and in the temple. 
Never had men better opportunity to know a man 
than they had to know Jesus. And what was the 
result? The more intimately they knew Him, the 
more fully they adored Him. As Bushnell points 
out, “ The most conspicuous matter in the history 
of Jesus is that what holds true in all our experi- 
ence of men is inverted in Him. He grows more 
sacred, peculiar, wonderful, divine, as acquaintance 
reveals Him. At first He is only a man, as the 
senses report Him to be; knowledge, observation, 
familiarity raise Him into the Godman. And ex- 
actly this appears in the history without any token 
of art, or even apparent consciousness that it does’ 
appear ,—appears because it is true. Probably no 
one of the evangelists ever so much as noticed this 


MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 115 


remarkable inversion of what holds good respect- 
ing men, in the life and character of Jesus. Is 
this character human, or is it plainly divine? ” 
We have little account of what Jesus taught the 
apostles during these precious months of closest 
association. Perhaps the teaching was not so 
much in words as in the daily revelation of a life 
whose every act was shaped in perfect obedience 
to the Father’s will,—a life most evidently human 
and yet most truly divine. But the fruit of the 
teaching is shown in the great confession, voiced 
by Peter, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
living God”; and the delight with which Jesus 
greeted his words shows the eagerness of His de- 
sire that they should truly know Him. The apos- 
tles had made a long step forward in the way of 
spiritual understanding. Earlier than this they 
had recognized their Master as One sent by God, 
and in a special sense the Holy One of God (John 
6:69); but this was a fuller recognition. Now for 
the first time they perceived in Him the mysteri- 
ous union of complete humanity and complete 
divinity. He was not only the Christ, who ac- 
cording to their expectations might be a human 
descendant of King David or a messenger from 
another world; but He was also “the Son of the 
living God,’—one who stood in a relationship to 
the Father such as no man or angel could claim. 
It would not be safe to say that Peter had as yet 
fully grasped the trinitarian doctrine of Christ’s 


116 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


person, and was declaring that in Him dwelleth 
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. That was 
to be a teaching of the Holy Ghost after Jesus had 
gone to the Father. But Peter’s present concep- 
tion of His divinity was one that a Jew, trained 
in the strictest monotheism, could not have gained 
through reason unaided; it must have been 
reached by divine assistance. “ Blessed art thou, 
Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not re- 
vealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in 
heaven.” 

When the disciples thus showed that they were 
gaining the correct conception of their Messiah, 
Jesus was encouraged to teach them the nature of 
His Messianic sacrifice. ‘‘ From that time began 
Jesus to show unto His disciples that He must go 
unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the 
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, 
and the third day be raised up.” Had He taught 
this earlier, it would have hindered them from 
recognizing that He was the Messiah. Possibly 
the stumbling-block of a predicted cross would 
have caused them to abandon Him when the multi- 
tude at Capernaum went away. Even now they 
were poorly prepared to surmount it. From the 
lips of the very disciple who just before had con- 
fessed Him came a cry of consternation and stout 
refusal, “‘ Mercy on Thee, Lord, this shall never 
be unto Thee!” Again and again as the days went 
on He had to repeat the lesson of the Cross to 


MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 117 


them; and though they finally learned it by heart, 
its meaning still remained a mystery. Much of 
His teaching was buried seed which must lie dor- 
mant until the winter of affliction was past, and 
the warm wind of the Holy Spirit quickened it 
into growth. 

A week after the confession of Christ’s divinity 
by Peter came the Transfiguration. Many have 
studied this as a unique chapter in Christ’s his- 
tory, supposing it the only time when His inward 
glory shone through the veil of flesh, or heavenly 
inhabitants came to visit Him. The supposition 
is unwarranted. Many a night of Christ’s life was 
spent in prayer where no human watcher was 
present to note what happened. Very possibly on 
those’ nights, too, there was a transfiguration as 
He prayed; and saints or angels may have talked 
with Him, or the Father may have spoken to the 
Son. We know that His prayer at the baptism 
and in Passion Week received an answer in articu- 
late words; we are told of angelic ministrations at 
the close of the struggle in the Wilderness and in 
Gethsemane; and the cowering of the soldiers 
when He went forth to them from the hour of 
prayer in the Garden seems to hint that His face 
then wore a supernal splendour somewhat like that 
which the disciples saw on the Mount. The 
transfiguration, therefore, may have been no 
strange thing to Jesus, however strange it was to 


118 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


the three who on this one occasion were permitted 
to behold it. 

It has been said that the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion was the forerunner of the Garden of Geth- 
semane. Undoubtedly this is true. The bitterness 
of the cup which He must drain was much in the 
mind of Jesus during these last months, and the 
final struggle of His soul must have been preceded 
by many a lesser struggle. Here upon the Mount 
undoubtedly He received strength and cheer 
through the ministry of the sainted dead and 
the assurance of the Father. But while the Trans- 
figuration was more than a spectacle prepared for 
the three disciples, they were taken to behold it 
because, as Peter recognized, it was good for them 
to be there. And the voice from out of the cloud 
was like that later one of which Christ said, “‘ This 
voice hath not come for my sake but your sakes.” 
They had reached a point in their spiritual edu- 
cation where they were beginning to comprehend 
that their Master was the Christ of God. If the 
veil of flesh should be partly lifted, and their eyes 
be granted a glimpse of the divine glory, then 
faith would be strengthened by sight. They were 
staggered by the teaching of the cross. If they 
should learn from the conversation of Moses and 
Elijah that heaven itself was looking forward with 
greatest expectation to that cross, foretold by the 
Law and the prophets, then though it might still 
remain a mystery, they would not deem it incon- 


MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 119 


sistent with their Lord’s divinity. Above all they 
needed the assurance of God, “ This is My be- 
loved Son, hear ye Him,” to make them receive 
with greater eagerness and more perfect trust 
whatever teachings Jesus might set before them. 

It was good for the disciples to be in the Mount. 
The remembrance of that hour helped them the 
rest of their lives. Peter makes special mention 
of it in the epistle written just before his death, 
as if the heavenly voice had been an inspiration 
to him through all the intervening years. The 
only mistake they made,—and Peter’s proposition 
to build three tabernacles reveals it—was to sup- 
pose that it would be good for them to abide in the 
Mount. Work was waiting for them when they 
should return to the plain; there were lessons to 
be learned by toil and suffering; and they were 
yet to realize that a crucified Christ is a more 
profitable sight for mortal eyes than a transfigured 
Christ. 

There was another revelation of Himself far 
different from that on the Mount, yet also helpful 
to the Twelve, for which Jesus took them up to 
Jerusalem. He had been there once before since 
the Passover when His public ministry began, and 
had roused the rage of the rulers by healing the 
impotent man at Bethesda on the Sabbath day; 
but at that time His disciples were not prepared 
to witness the contest that ensued, so He went 
alone. Now, for the Feast of Tabernacles, He 


120 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


took them with Him, waiting, however, until after 
the crowd of pilgrims had ceased to fill the roads, 
so that He might go up “not publicly but as it 
were in secret.”’ Since there were those in Jeru- 
salem who sought His life, He must not adver- 
tise His coming. Arriving when the feast was in 
full progress, He went straight to the temple, the 
stronghold of His enemies, and began to preach. 
At once the storm broke. Questions were hurled 
at Him; threats were uttered; He was denounced 
as a Samaritan and having a devil; Nicodemus, 
who spoke in His favour, was scorned; the temple 
guard was sent to arrest Him but feared to do so; 
and stones were seized to cast at Him. And 
through it all, day after day till the feast ended, 
He stood fearlessly before them and uttered His 
messages of promise, entreaty, warning, and de- 
nunciation. 

The conflict at Jerusalem was such as the apos- 
tles never before had witnessed; and they trem- 
bled constantly for their Master and sometimes 
for themselves. The rage of His enemies was ter- 
rible beyond what they had ever dreamed; and 
His boldness in defying the rulers, His calmness 
amid their fury, formed a new revelation. It was 
good for them to be there even as it had been in 
the Mount, though now they had not the slightest 
desire to prolong their stay. His present fearless- 
ness taught them that the previous seclusion had 


MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 121 


not been caused by fear; and the memory of these 
hours would do much to make them bold when in 
later years they, too, must face howling mobs and 
bear witness to the truth. Also, now they heard 
Him assert without reserve and in strongest words 
His divine Sonship, concerning which He had 
charged them to say nothing when they came 
down from the Mount. And from the helplessness 
of His enemies when seeking to slay Him, they 
were being taught—though they forgot the lesson 
when later on they needed it most—that His foes 
were helpless to slay Him until He should give 
His consent. Bitter as was the hostility, “no man 
laid hands on Him because His hour was not yet 
come.” 

From the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus returned 
with the Twelve to Capernaum. It was His fare- 
well visit; for when after a brief stay He departed 
to begin His ministry in Perea, His work both in 
Galilee and in its borders was ended, and He re- 
turned no more. Farewell to Galilee——beautiful, 
favoured, sinful, impenitent Galilee! 

In imagination we can see the Saviour stand- 
ing with His little band on one of the hills that 
fringe the western shores of the Sea of Tiberias. 
Below Him lie the blue waters of the harp-shaped 
lake, so familiar to Him and His followers. In 
storm and sunshine, in daylight and darkness, 
Peter and John have rowed upon its bosom or 


122 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


swept its depths with their nets. The feet of 
Jesus have trodden its billows; His voice has 
hushed its tempests into peace. The shores are 
lined with rich cities and fertile fields, fair or- 
chards and crowded sheepfolds. Here are the 
Synagogues in which Jesus has often preached, 
the highways along which He has passed many a 
time. Beneath yonder tree He has rested at noon- 
day; from this spring He has often quenched His 
thirst; in that house He has found shelter for the 
night. And miracles! He has wrought them on 
every side; there is scarcely a family that has not 
in some way been helped,—scarcely a man or 
woman who has not seen some wonderful work. 
Ah! Galilee has been favoured beyond the lot 
of all other lands, and lies close to the heart of 
the Christ. But now He is taking His farewell 
look before He goes to meet the cross. As He 
gazes there fall from His lips,—uttered not in 
wrath but in that stern sorrow which is far more 
terrible than wrath,—these words of condemna- 
tion, ‘‘ Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, 
Bethsaida! It shall be more tolerable for Tyre 
and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 
‘And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto 
heaven? thou shalt be brought down unto Hades. 
For if the mighty works had been done in Sodom 
which were done in thee, it would have remained 
until this day. But I say unto you that it shall 


MOUNT OF THE TRANSFIGURATION 128 


be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day 
of judgment than for thee.” 

Would you know how these words have been 
fulfilled? Stand on those same hills today, and 
look off eastward. The Lake still lies in tranquil 
beauty; but the scene is one of startling loneliness 
and desolation. Tiberias, the city into which 
- Christ never entered, holds its place as a miserable 
and filthy town; a few wretched hovels stand on 
the probable sight of Magdala; some broken col- 
umns buried in the grass make scholars dispute 
whether this may be the site of proud Caper- 
naum; and as for Bethsaida and Chorazin there 
is nothing to show that they ever existed. The 
Land of Gennesaret lies under a curse; but it 
brought that curse upon itself. 

Ah, woe to the land, or the house, or the heart, 
that drives the Saviour from its midst! Its sen- 
tence and doom are those of Chorazin and Caper- 
naum. When Jesus has spoken His truths to it; 
when He has made His divinity most evident; 
when He had done all within His power to win it 
to Himself; and, despite all this, selfishness re- 
fuses to listen, and ribaldry mocks at His invita- 
tion, and hatred loads Him with abuse,—then 
reluctantly, sadly but surely He departs. And 
upon that land, that house, that soul, there comes 
the awful judgment, framed not by the wrath of 
God but by His justice, decreed by His wisdom 


124 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


but against His wish, (for God is not willing that 
any should perish, but that all should come to 
repentance) the judgment summed up in a single 
sentence, ‘“‘ Without Christ and without hope.” 

The stern sentence upon Capernaum and her 
sister cities is not the last word of Jesus in Galilee;' 
and we must not end this chapter as if it were. On 
Easter morning, when the women stood in trem- 
bling and astonishment before the open tomb, an 
angel bade them, “‘ Go, tell His disciples and Peter, 
He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye 
see Him, as He said unto you.” So it came to 
pass that on the shores of the Lake where once 
He had called Peter from his fishing-boat, He 
called Him again; and on “the mountain” where 
He had preached the Sermon, He gave to the 
Eleven His greatest command and most precious 
promise, ‘‘ Go ye and make disciples of all the na- 
tions,” and ‘‘ Lo, I am with you always even unto 
the end of the world.” Thus, through His love for 
the land of His childhood, Galilee had a place in 
the second beginning of His gospel even as in the 
first. 


VIil 
THE MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 


‘T= Mount of Olives is associated in more 
ways with the public ministry of Jesus 
than any other spot in Palestine. On its 
eastern slope lay Bethany, the home of His most 
intimate friends and the scene of His most im- 
portant miracle; nearer its summit though not far 
from Bethany He gave His farewell message to 
the apostles, and was parted from them and taken 
up into heaven; down on its western side was the 
Place of the Oilpress to which He often came for 
prayer, and whose olive trees witnessed His agony 
and arrest; and along its southern shoulder ran 
the road from the Jordan and Bethany to Jeru- 
salem by which the excited multitude with palm 
branches and hosannas escorted Him triumphantly 
to the gates of the temple. This was the great 
pilgrim road for worshippers from Galilee, who 
chose rather to cross the Jordan and journey down 
its eastern bank and cross again and traverse the 
hot plain of Jericho and make the stiff climb of 
twenty miles up through a wilderness frequented 
by robbers, than to travel more easily and quickly 


through the land of the hated Samaritans. Jesus 
125 


126 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


had first walked this road when, a boy of twelve, 
He came with His parents to the Passover. He 
had trodden it many a time since then, and made 
it immortal by His parable of the Good Samaritan. 
But that which renders it sacred to all who love 
and revere Him was His journey over it when He 
came from Bethany to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. 

In a certain sense the whole of the closing six 
months of the public ministry may be considered 
a journey up to Jerusalem and the cross, or a 
preparation for the triumphal entry and its in- 
evitable results. ‘The course of this journey can 
with difficulty be traced. Starting from Caper- 
naum, Jesus and the Twelve seem to have passed 
through the plain of Esdraelon to the borders of 
Samaria, thence eastward across the Jordan into 
Perea, and in that land to have journeyed leisurely 
from village to village. ‘There was no reason for 
haste: the Passover was months away, and the 
present work was of great value to the Twelve in 
training them for their future missionary labours. 
After the private lessons that Jesus had given 
them concerning Himself and His Kingdom, they 
could enter with new understanding into His pub- 
lic ministry. Perea did not equal Galilee in fer- 
tility and population, nor Judea in political and 
religious importance; but it was well peopled’ and 
flourishing, and offered for their labours a new 
field which the hostility of rulers and Pharisees 
had not yet made barren. And labouring there, 


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MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 127 


moving slowly towards the south, they would be 
almost in the highway to Jerusalem. 

There were miracles in this Perean ministry; 
we have a full report of two or three; but miracles 
fall into the background, and teaching comes to 
the front. Often the teaching was by parables, 
and it is well to note the character of these. 
Christ’s parables may be arranged in three groups, 
those told by the Sea of Galilee, those of the Pas- 
sion Week in Jerusalem, and the intermediate 
parables of the Perean days. The first group is 
given to lessons concerning the Kingdom. It has, 
for example, the parables of the sower, the leaven, 
the mustard seed. They are plain enough to us 
who have their key; but to many of the original 
hearers they must have been enigmatic. Indeed, 
Jesus used such parables chiefly when part of His 
audience were enemies waiting to catch Him in 
talk; so that “hearing they might hear and not 
understand,” and thus be unable to accuse Him 
of teaching what the Sanhedrin would condemn. 
The parables in Jerusalem are stern prophetic de- 
scriptions of the final judgment or the doom of the 
Jewish nation; e. g., the ten virgins, the talents, 
the wicked husbandmen, the two sons. The full 
meaning of some of these is even yet hidden. 
They shadow forth truths that cannot be clearly 
known until the fullness of times is come. But 
the Perean parables are mostly so simple that no 
hearer could fail to understand them, and they 


128 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


are both tender and practical. Few words of 
Jesus have more deeply touched the world than 
those about the Good Samaritan, the lost sheep, 
the prodigal son, Dives and Lazarus, and the 
Pharisee and the publican. And such declara- 
tions of divine mercy and infinite love are filled 
with double force when we remember that they 
were spoken as the Master was journeying up to 
Jerusalem to lay down His life for the world. 

We find in the teachings of this period a special 
emphasis of self-sacrifice. This might be ex- 
pected. The law of redemptive suffering, whose 
divine sanction was recognized in His own life 
most clearly at this time, was the law that Jesus 
now laid down for all who would be His disciples. 
‘“‘ Count the cost,’”’ He said; “‘ Whosoever doth not 
bear his cross and come after Me, cannot be My 
disciple.” It was in Perea that He met the rich 
young ruler who was unwilling to surrender His 
wealth; and probably it was in Perea that He 
warned those who offered to follow Him, that they 
must become homeless, must abandon family ties, 
and having put their hands to the plow must not 
look back. Concerning Christ’s words during the 
Perean ministry Principal Fairbairn well remarks, 
“The change in His spirit was marked by a cor- 
responding change in His teaching. He became 
sadder; was in speech, as in soul, more the Man 
of Sorrows, despised and rejected of men; less the 
exalted Servant of God coming in beauty over the 


MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 129 


mountains and through the valleys to publish 
peace. The contradiction of sinners was the 
prophecy of Calvary. The iron had entered into 
His soul, and His heart was bearing its cross. 
The springtime was passed; autumn with its fall- 
ing leaves and withered flowers had come. Cities 
once zealous were cold; enemies once soft-spoken 
and fearful were harsh and arrogant. But just 
when men were falsest and feeblest, He was tru- 
est to Himself; His person came into the fore- 
ground; He Himself became the great theme of 
His discourses. He proclaimed Himself to be 
greater than David or Solomon; as the last and 
greatest of the prophets, as above the Law, as 
superior to the Temple, as revealer of God. He 
declared Himself to be the Bread of Life, the Life 
of the world, the Light of the world. The im- 
pending suffering He glorified; the death that was 
coming so surely, He interpreted into a sacrifice 
of universal efficacy and eternal worth. The gath- 
ering clouds left His soul clear. His confidence 
in His cause and triumph seemed to grow in calm- 
ness and rise in strength as the storm increased. 
His spirit had depths storms could not reach, 
heights they could not disturb.” 

The proclamation of His nature and claims, con- 
cerning which Dr. Fairbairn speaks, was made by 
Jesus mainly in Jerusalem. During the Galilean 
ministry He had stayed away from the city; but 
in this last year He went up to each of the 


180 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


feasts,—to Pentecost, if that is the unnamed feast 
of John 5:1; to Tabernacles, to Dedication and 
finally to the last Passover. The rulers had re- 
fused to accept Him, denouncing His teachings 
and pronouncing His miracles the work of Satan; 
and He knew that they would proceed against 
Him until they compassed His death; but they 
must not do this without full knowledge of what 
they were doing. With increasing clearness as 
their hostility increased, He offered Himself to 
them as the divine Messiah, and forced them to 
pass judgment upon His claims. We might study 
His statements at Pentecost when they sought to 
kill Him because He called God His Father, or at 
Tabernacles when they were on the point of ston- 
ing Him because He said ‘‘ Before Abraham was 
I am.” But a single scene from the next feast 
will be enough. 

The Feast of Dedication came in the middle of 
the Perean ministry,—during the month of De- 
cember. It was a patriotic festival commemorat- 
ing the expulsion of the Syrians from the temple 
two hundred years before, and its purification and 
rededication, rendered necessary by their shame- 
ful desecration of it. The feast was one of general 
rejoicing; and though attendance was not obliga- 
tory, many devout Jews were accustomed to go 
up to the Holy City for it. In accordance with 
His present plan of showing Himself openly as the 
Messiah, Jesus suspended His Perean work long 


MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 131 


enough to attend the feast. Whether His disciples 
went with Him we are not told; probably they did, 
and this is what they saw and heard. Jesus is 
walking to and fro beneath the covered porch of 
the Temple, called Solomon’s porch, driven there, 
it may be, with other worshippers, to escape the 
cold December rain. The rulers recognize Him, 
and come with the question,—asked with no 
honest desire to know the truth, but with design 
to ensnare Him,—‘*‘ How long dost Thou make us 
to doubt? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.” 
He does tell them plainly, “ I and My Father are 
one.” Let those who seek to deny His divinity 
explain these words as they please,—let them seek 
for some unity between Jesus and God that shall 
not involve more than the unity which any conse- 
crated man may claim with the Father of us all, 
unity of action or purpose or feeling or will,—one 
thing is certain, the Jews understood (and Christ 
knew that they would so understand, and meant 
them to) His answer to mean that He was God. 
No sooner has He uttered the words than they 
take up stones to stone Him; and when He asks 
why they do this, the reply is, ‘“ Because thou, 
being a man, makest thyself God.” It is hard 
for us to grasp the subtle doctrine of the Trinity; 
it is impossible for us to comprehend fully its mys- 
tery. But he who listens to Christ’s words about 
Himself must end by crying either with the Jews, 


132 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


“Thou speakest blasphemy,” or with Thomas, 
“My Lord and my God.” There is no middle 
ground. 

This plain revelation of Himself at the Feast 
only brought forth an equally plain revelation of 
the hatred and murderous purpose of the Jews; 
and Jesus went back to Perea, certain that the 
next visit to Jerusalem must be His last. John’s 
record contains a statement which has in it some- 
thing touchingly human and pathetic: “ They 
sought again to take Him, but He went forth out 
of their hand; and He went away again beyond 
Jordan into the place where John was at the first 
baptizing; and there He abode” (10:39). It 
does not seem irreverent to explain this act as 
caused by the same impulse as similar acts in our 
own lives. When our lifework is almost ended, 
and we are in the mood for retrospect, we turn 
instinctively to the place where that lifework 
began. The man of millions revisits the country 
store where he laid the foundation of his fortune. 
The man of world-renowned eloquence recalls the 
little lyceum where he first won laurels as a de- 
bater. The man of God seeks the spot where he 
gave his heart to God or received the baptism of 
the Holy Spirit. So Jesus in these last days came 
back to the place where He had been given His 
divine commission and had entered obediently 
upon His public ministry. And abiding there, His 
thoughts must have been busy with all that had 


MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 133 


taken place between that first hour and now. 
Then John was the mighty preacher of righteous- 
ness before whom all Judea trembled; he counted 
his converts by thousands, and was confident that 
the day of Israel’s Messianic glory was about to 
dawn. Now John was dead, put to death by the 
malignity of a wicked woman, his disciples were 
scattered, and his work was scarcely more than a 
memory. ‘Then Jesus had just come forth from 
His mountain home, buoyant with youthful hope 
and strength, eager to proclaim glad tidings to His 
nation. Now the possibility of national accept- 
ance was ended; Judea was ready to slay Him, 
Galilee had lost all interest in Him, Perea was 
but a brief abiding place until the appointed hour 
of death should come. The day was almost spent, 
—the freshness of morning, the heat of noon, the 
gathering shadows of evening,—soon it would be 
night. Then, as a preparation for His work, He 
had sought the baptism of John; now as He looked 
forward to Calvary, His cry was, “‘ I have a bap- 
tism to be baptized with; and how am I strait- 
ened till it be accomplished.” 

There were still three months before the Pass- 
over; and while the daylight lasted, Jesus must 
work the works of Him who sent Him. John was 
dead; but his labours as the forerunner still 
brought forth a little fruit. As Jesus abode in 
this place where John first baptized, ‘“‘ many re- 
sorted unto Him, and said, ‘ John did no miracle; 


134 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


but all things that John spake of this man were 
true; and many believed on Him there.’” While 
He was thus employed a messenger came in hot 
haste from Bethany sent by the two sisters with 
the simple statement, in which they knew He 
would recognize a prayer for help, ‘‘ Lord, behold, 
he whom Thou lovest is sick.”” And Jesus, after 
sending back an answer whose ambiguity must 
have sorely tried the suppliants though it did not 
shake their faith, and after waiting calmly until 
Lazarus was already dead, went to Bethany. The 
apostles accompanied Him, though it seemed to 
them that He was deliberately putting Himself in 
the power of His enemies. 

There is much to be learned by studying the 
raising of Lazarus; but all we can do now is to 
look at its relation to subsequent events. Christ’s 
miracles at Jerusalem, as recorded in the Gospel 
of John, form a climax of increasing manifesta- 
tions of divine power on His part, and of increas- 
ing hostility and rage on the part of the rulers. 
At the first Passover the miracles seem to have 
been simple acts of healing; and the rulers treated 
them and His teaching with little more than con- 
tempt. At Pentecost the cure of a man who for 
thirty-eight years had been publicly known to be 
a hopeless cripple, accompanied as it was with a 
seeming violation of the Sabbath and the declara- 
tion that He was justified in working on the Sab- 
bath because His Father worked, roused the Phari- 


MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 135 


sees to persecute and seek to slay Him. At Dedi- 
cation, the opening of the eyes of a man born 
blind,—something unheard of since the world 
began, so the poor fellow declared,—led to the ex- 
communication of the man as well as to an attempt 
to stone Jesus. And now this miracle of raising 
Lazarus, who had lain four days in the tomb, 
brought about a deliberate decision of the whole 
Sanhedrin, both Pharisees and Sadducees, that the 
miracle-worker must be publicly condemned and 
handed over to the Romans to be put to death. 
The struggle between Jesus and the rulers was 
one in which no compromise was possible; and 
the bolder and stronger Jesus showed Himself to 
be, the more aroused and desperate His opponents 
became. We can well believe that the Sanhedrin 
debated carefully and long before they reached 
their final decision. This Galilean was no shallow 
impostor; He was a very child of hell, armed with 
the deadliest powers of His Satanic father; but ~ 
God was on their side, and with His help they 
might rest assured of victory. So they reasoned, 
and reasoning prepared to act. That the raising 
of Lazarus would bring such a result, Jesus had 
clearly foreseen. The crucifixion was in His 
thoughts when He said of the message from 
Bethany, “This sickness is not unto death, but 
for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be 
glorified thereby.” Being glorified and being 
crucified were almost identical terms for Him in 


‘ 


186 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


those days. And we can see now that if Lazarus 
had not died and been raised from the dead, there 
would have been no Triumphal Entry on Palm 
Sunday and no Via Dolorosa on Good Friday. 
After the miracle at Bethany Jesus did not re- 
turn to Perea, but retired to a little, obscure vil- 
lage called Ephraim, probably in the northeastern 
part of Judea. He went into hiding, not because 
He feared death but because He desired to eat 
the Passover with His disciples before He suf- 
fered; had the Sanhedrin known where He was, 
they would have taken Him into custody at once. 
Moreover, He needed these few weeks of quiet 
and retirement for giving His apostles their last 
lessons and for gaining spiritual rest and refresh- 
ment before the final days of conflict and anguish. 
When the Passover was at hand the good people 
of Ephraim doubtless took the direct road over 
the Judean hills to Jerusalem; but Jesus went 
down across the Jordan valley, and joined the 
bands of pilgrims who were journeying from 
Galilee and Perea. He had gone “as it were in 
secret ” to Tabernacles, and had appeared unex- 
pectedly at Dedication; but there should be no 
such precautions about this visit. Passing through 
Jericho, where His healing of Bartimeus and abid- 
ing with Zaccheus centered the attention of all 
upon Him, He came up to Bethany on Friday and 
with the Twelve remained there for the Sabbath, 
while the other pilgrims pressed forward to Jeru- 


MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 137 


salem, bearing the tidings that the wonderful 
Nazarene was on His way to the feast. The San- 
hedrin had commanded that if any man knew 
where He was he should reveal it, and the wor- 
shippers in the temple had been asking each other, 
“What think ye? That He will not come to the 
feast?’ Now all uncertainty was ended, and 
friend and foe alike held their breath in ex- 
pectation. 

There was no reason why Jesus should hasten 
to enter the city, and it seems to have been high 
noon or later on Sunday before He set forth from 
Bethany. Nor is there any indication that He 
planned a triumphal entry; it was forced upon 
Him by the pilgrims who crowded the road, some 
journeying up from Jericho, others coming from 
Jerusalem in search of Him. They greeted Him 
with the cry, “Hosanna! Blessed is He that 
cometh in the name of the Lord, even the King 
of Israel”; they spread branches of palm-trees 
and even their garments before Him; they formed 
themselves into a royal escort. Once before when 
they tried to make Him king, Jesus had turned 
away from them; this time He suffered them to 
work their will. But if He was to be brought into 
the city as a king, there should be no mistake as 
to what kind of a king. For this purpose He bor- 
rowed the ass, a beast always associated with 
peace as the horse was with war, and let them 
place Him upon it; and thus, as the prophet had 


188 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


foretold, ‘‘ meek and riding upon an ass ” He went 
slowly onward, with the multitude streaming be- 
fore Him and behind, full of exultant expectation 
that now the Romans would be driven from their 
city and their land. How utterly they failed to 
grasp the significance of the beast on which He 
rode! 

The modern road from Bethany to Jerusalem 
runs nearly in the track of the ancient one; and, 
as Dean Stanley points out, we can follow Christ’s 
pathway on that first Palm Sunday more exactly 
than on any other journey in His life. The 
triumphal procession wound around the southern 
shoulder of Mount Olivet until they came to a 
bend in the road where that corner of the city in 
which stands Mount Zion appeared in sight. At 
this view of the City of David, they raised again 
their cry, “Hosanna to the Son of David! 
Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the 
Lord.” There were Pharisees among the crowd; 
and these indignantly said, ‘“‘ Master, rebuke thy 
disciples.” But Christ answered, ‘‘ If these should 
hold their peace, the stones would immediately 
cry out.” The greeting which the people were 
giving Him belonged to Him by right; He would 
not refuse to accept it. 

The road next descended into a hollow hiding 
Mount Zion; then, rising again and bending to 
the north around the hill, it brought the whole 
city in view. Across the valley of Kedron the 


MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 139 


gray wall rose in massive line, the roofs and tow- 
ers and palaces shone out in the sunlight, and the 
snowy temple, glittering with gold and surrounded 
by courts filled with worshippers, seemed like a 
heavenly house of God. Involuntarily the proces- 
sion paused to gaze. For the multitude the sight 
was the most beautiful that earth could offer; for. 
Jesus it was the most saddening. He saw, as only 
He could see, the doom already overhanging Jeru- 
salem. The day was close at hand when its walls 
would be battered down, its temple polluted, for- 
saken, blackened by fire, and its houses a mass 
of ruins filled with rotting corpses. The contrast 
touched Him to the heart; and tears filled His 
eyes as He cried, “If thou hadst known in this 
day, even thou, the things which belong unto 
peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes. 
For the days shall come upon thee, when thine 
enemies shall cast up a bank about thee, and com- 
pass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, 
and shall dash thee to the ground, and thy chil- 
dren within thee; and they shall not leave in thee 
one stone upon another; because thou knewest not 
the time of thy visitation.” Sadder lament was 
never uttered for any city, and no city ever had 
more cause for it. But the multitude listened un- 
comprehending, and raised again the cry, ‘“ Ho- 
sanna! Blessed is the King of Israel!” 

Down across the valley of the Kedron, and up 
the short, sharp ascent to the city gate the noisy 


140 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


procession moved, and at their coming the whole 
city was stirred. The walls and housetops were 
crowded with spectators; and the streets were so 
filled with the shouting multitude that the Phari- 
sees said one to another, “ Lo, the world is gone 
after Him!” Onward they pressed into the great 
Court of the Gentiles, and then they waited to see 
what would happen. Would the priests dare now 
to defy Him? Would the Roman guards come 
forth to arrest Him? Would there be the miracle 
they were confidently expecting,—fire from heaven 
to destroy His enemies,—earthquake or thunder 
to strike terror to all hearts? They had hailed 
Him as king and were ready with their lives to 
support Him; they had brought Him to the place 
of all places where He should assert His claims to 
the throne: what would He do? Breathless they 
waited. And to their disappointment, rage, dis- 
gust, He did—nothing. The priests stood in 
silence; the Romans made no stir; and Jesus 
moved through the temple courts, surveying all 
with that comprehensive look of His, silently and 
humbly as a common worshipper. Only a word 
from Him, a sign even, and the conflict would be 
precipitated. But His lips were sealed, His hand 
made no motion towards the crown. Sullenly they 
waited, vainly they watched. And presently, as 
the day was drawing towards its close, they saw 
Him quietly go forth across the valley, up the 
slope of Olivet, back once more towards Bethany. 


MOUNT OF THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY 141 


The Triumphal Entry seemed an utter failure: 
they had spent their strength upon one who failed 
them. Now in their rage they were ripening for 
Friday and Calvary. 

And Jesus,—can we imagine the thoughts that 
filled His heart, as He retraced the way along 
which He had so recently come in mighty com- 
pany, but now must go with only the little band 
of disciples,—and they, too, sorely disappointed? 
It had been an hour of temptation, equalled in 
intensity by only the temptation in the Wilder- 
ness; did the angels come and minister to Him at 
its close now as they did then? 


IX 
THE MOUNT OF THE AGONY 


N the lowest slope of Mount Olivet, above 
() the dry ravine in which once flowed the 
brook Kidron, and close by the point 

where the main road to Bethany makes a turn to 
the south after crossing the valley, stands a group 
of olive trees, eight in all. A modern wall, high, 
plastered and whitewashed, shuts them in; and 
the enclosed space, under the care of Latin monks, 
has been transformed into a stiff garden with 
gravel walks, trimmed hedges, flower beds, and 
numerous shrines. This is the traditional site of 
Gethsemane. You pay a fee for admission; and 
the custodian who shows you through, keeps care- 
ful watch against your carrying away a flower or 
leaf or pebble as a souvenir. He is ready, how- 
ever, to supply such articles to any extent for due 
remuneration. Near by, various places of special 
sanctity are pointed out, a dark cave where Jesus 
prayed, a stony bank where the three disciples 
slept, and the terra damnata, where Judas gave 
the kiss of betrayal. You look at all sceptically, 
fling some coppers to the clamorous beggars who 


waylay you, and make your way to another tradi- 
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MOUNT OF THE AGONY 143 


tional site of Gethsemane, appropriated and adver- 
tised by a rival denomination. 

Nevertheless, though superstition and greed 
have done all in their power to destroy the im- 
pressiveness of the place, they have not wholly 
succeeded. , Those old olive trees,—now scarcely 
more than great, shapeless boles, crowned with 
broken branches,—are eloquent with voices that 
reach the soul. Granted that they cannot be as 
old as the time of Christ, granted that Gethsem- 
ane must have been further away from the pub- 
lic road, yet the spot was somewhere near this, 
and in the shadow of like trees our Saviour knelt 
in prayer. It was fit that the sanctuary of sor- 
rows should be woven of olive branches. The olive 
is sacred among the trees of the field. The cedar 
of Lebanon, tall, stately, ever green, tells of power 
and glory; the olive with ashen foliage and gnarled, 
distorted limbs and starry blossoms or sable beads 
of fruit, tells of sorrow, agony, fruit-bearing. 

Gethsemane was a place of resort for Jesus be- 
fore the night of His betrayal. This is shown 
by the traitor’s confidence that he would find Him 
there. Possibly the reason why Jesus was hungry 
and sought for figs on the morning after the Tri- 
umphal Entry, was because He had spent the 
whole previous night at Gethsemane. The dis- 
ciples could find shelter and food in the hospitable 
home at Bethany; but He, after the heavy strain 


144. MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


of the day, must have solitude and communion 
with His Father before He could go forth to an- 
other day of conflict. 

Monday of Passion Week could hardly be called 
a day of conflict; it was comparatively unevent- 
ful. The Jews had not determined what course 
to pursue because they could not foresee what 
Jesus would do; and He in turn was waiting some 
decisive action by them. Everything depended 
upon the people; and they seemed neutral, already 
lacking the enthusiasm of the previous day but 
still so attentive and friendly to Jesus that the 
rulers dared not proceed against Him. The heal- 
ing of some lame and blind in the temple aroused 
no excitement, for the Galilean pilgrims were used 
to such miracles; yet when the children, remem- 
bering the mighty chorus of yesterday, began to 
cry, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,” the priests 
dared do nothing more than remonstrate. When 
the day drew to an end without any demonstra- 
tion of popular favour, and Jesus retired again to 
the Mount of Olives, His friends must have felt 
increasing disappointment, and His enemies cor- 
responding elation. 

On Tuesday the great contest began, and 
was carried on unceasingly throughout the day. 
Christ’s enemies now were ready to attack Him. 
Pharisees and Sadducees had put aside mutual 
hostilities, and arranged for a combined assault. 
Their endeavour was to discredit Him with the 


MOUNT OF THE AGONY 145 


people, so that popular protection would be with- 
drawn and they could arrest Him without hin- 
drance. Different agents of the Sanhedrin, one 
after another, came to Him as He taught in the 
temple, and by direct demands, by flattery and 
by seemingly honest enquiries, tried to trap Him 
into some statement that would justify His arrest 
or, at least, would completely alienate His hearers. 
They challenged His authority to teach without 
permission from the Sanhedrin. They tried to get 
from Him a decision about paying taxes that 
either would offend all patriotic Jews or else could 
be reported to the Romans as insurrectionary. 
They sought to cover Him with ridicule by ask- 
ing absurd questions, and to prove Him ignorant 
of the Law by propounding problems from it. All 
their keenest wits were used as hostile weapons. 
It was in vain; each assailant retired discomfited 
or was forced against his will to endorse His re- 
plies. Nor did Jesus simply stand on the de- 
fensive. He boldly and without reserve attacked 
the rulers. He put to them questions that exposed 
their incompetence to be Israel’s teachers. He 
spoke against them His severest parables of con- 
demnation, the application of which both they and 
the bystanders could not fail to see. And finally 
He broke forth into a series of terrible denuncia- 
tions of the scribes and Pharisees. Even to read 
the woes He pronounced, appals us today: what 
must it have been to hear Him utter them to the 


146 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


cowering rulers while the audience of pilgrims 
stood silent and horror-stricken. They are a 
revelation of our Lord, not as the suffering Son 
of Mary nor as the loving Saviour of the lost, but 
as the Judge of the world, the One who pro- 
nounces sentence with absolute justice upon the 
righteous and the wicked. In them we hear the 
voice that hereafter shall proclaim, “‘ Depart from 
me ye cursed into the eternal fire, which is pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels.” Christ does 
not cease to be the Lamb of God; but here He 
reveals, what we never should forget, that there 
is such a thing as “ the wrath of the Lamb.” 
When Jesus thus passed sentence upon His 
enemies, He also fixed their sentence upon Him- 
self. Even the pilgrims who had not lost faith 
in Him became unwilling to follow One who so 
ruthlessly denounced the men whom they from 
childhood had deemed the saintliest and wisest of 
all Israel. And the rulers themselves were boiling 
with rage and bloodthirstiness. Jesus had openly 
and outrageously mocked, insulted and cursed 
them. The penalty He must pay for this must be 
nothing less than the most ignominious and cruel 
fate within their power. When Jesus went forth 
from the City on Tuesday at nightfall, He knew 
that to enter it again would be to invite certain 
death, if His presence there was discovered. And 
in order that He might eat the Passover with His 


MOUNT OF THE AGONY 147 


disciples before He suffered, He remained in 
seclusion all of Wednesday and until Thursday 
evening. 

We note with interest that this Passover was 
the first in which Jesus Himself was the giver of 
the feast. Before His ministry He would be the 
guest of some older, more influential person. At 
the first Passover of His ministry He had not yet 
chosen all the Twelve, and so would not have the 
prescribed number for the meal; the second Pass- 
over He did not attend. It is true that the room 
in which He now sat down with His disciples be- 
longed to another. But from the manger to the 
tomb Jesus had to depend upon the hospitality of 
His friends: the only property He could call His 
own was a handful of clothing which the Roman 
soldiers divided among themselves while He hung 
upon the cross. It is true, also, that the neces- 
sary preparations for the present feast were made 
by Peter and John. But Jesus, as the head of the 
company, was responsible for their acts, and was 
reckoned as the one who really sacrificed the lamb. 
It was the only Paschal lamb He ever offered; as 
the symbol of His own sacrifice, the offering was 
once for all. 

The desire with which Christ desired to eat this 
Passover with His disciples is explained when we 
consider the importance of His transformation of 
the Jewish feast into the Christian sacrament of 
the Lord’s Supper. More even than the written 


148 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


record of His words and miracles, this sacramental 
meal has kept alive the memory of His life and 
aided men to understand the meaning of His 
death. Can we imagine what the church would 
have lost, into what misconceptions of Christ’s 
message it would have wandered, how far in the 
lapse of the centuries it would have forgotten the 
meaning of Calvary, had not the broken bread 
and the consecrated cup stood before it, ever 
speaking with silent eloquence and working with 
spiritual power? Christians may differ, as they 
have throughout the centuries, in their explana- 
tion of how or in what sense the sacred elements 
are the body and blood of their Lord; but no one 
who has partaken of the sacramental meal humbly 
and with earnest desire for more spiritual life, can 
doubt that in this communion he has met the Mas- 
ter and become more truly one with Him. 

The Passover meal was the last untroubled 
hour in the earthly life of Our Saviour. After its 
final words of comfort and instruction had been 
spoken, its earnest prayer been offered and its 
psalm of thanksgiving been sung, Jesus went forth 
with His disciples to Gethsemane. And there the 
peace and joy that pervaded the Last Supper dis- 
appeared, and anguish of soul overpowered Him 
in increasing measure. He began to be sorrowful, 
“sore troubled, greatly amazed, exceedingly sor- 
rowiul even unto death.” Once more He was 
transfigured before them, but now the transfigura- 


MOUNT OF THE AGONY 149 


tion was a manifestation of His inward agony. 
That somewhat awkward phrase of our King 
James Bible, “to be very heavy ” (Matt. 26:37), 
is the translation of a Greek verb denoting a sor- 
row like that of homesickness,—an overwhelming 
feeling of loneliness and longing. His soul seemed 
at the point of death. Even the companionship 
of His most intimate disciples could not help Him 
now. Bidding them watch, He withdrew a little 
distance, ‘‘ about a stone’s cast,’ and knelt in 
prayer and presently fell on His face upon the 
ground. ‘There, in the silence of the midnight, 
with the full moon shining down upon the ashen 
leaves of the gnarled olives and spreading a net- 
work of tangled light and shadow across the silent 
form; there with three apostles struggling in vain 
against a strange heaviness which weighed them 
down in slumber, and eight sitting in ignorance by 
the entrance of the orchard, and one already on 
the way with the enemy to give the kiss of be- 
trayal; there on that Thursday night centuries 
ago the Saviour of the world wrestled in sore 
anguish of spirit. We catch but a glimpse of His 
agony. Our eyes, too, are heavy. We hear His 
cry “ My Father, if it be possible, let this cup 
pass away from Me”; our hearts are touched by 
it; but when we seek to extend our sympathy, we 
are powerless. The sorrow is too great for us; its 
cause is beyond our comprehension. We cannot 
watch through such an hour. And so we sit in 


150 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


dullness, unable to offer the help our Master 
seeks, until somehow, we know not how, the strug- 
gle is ended, peace is found, Gethsemane is past; 
and the Master comes to us saying, “Sleep on 
now, and take your rest.” 


“We ne’er can know such sorrow as that night 
Pierced to the heart the suffering Son of God; 
And every earthly sadness is but light, 
To that dark path He trod.” 


It may seem almost irreverent to examine 
closely into this hour of Christ’s life. We are like 
prattling children in the presence of some awful 
tragedy; and our explanations are only pitiful ex- 
hibitions of our inability to comprehend. Yet the 
record of Gethsemane is set before us, and we do 
well to ponder it. Perhaps we can enter just a 
step into its mysterious shadows. Before we do 
so, let us put aside indignantly the suggestion that 
the agony in the Garden arose from fear of death 
or of the tortures of the cross. Why! every day 
we see men face death without fear; and feeble, 
old men and delicate maidens have gone to the 
scaffold, the stake, the lions, with hymns of re- 
joicing. Fierce as were the pangs of the cross, 
the hours upon it were no more full of physical 
suffering than those when in our own land the In- 
dians with every kind of fiendish torture slowly 
did to death the missionaries who came among 
them in the name of the Master; yet these mar- 


MOUNT OF THE AGONY 151 


tyrs were in spirit untroubled and praised God 
with their last breath. If Jesus drew back in 
dread of crucifixion, the conduct of His followers 
is more heroic than His own. No! we must look 
deeper for the bitter dregs of the cup that was 
pressed to His lips. His sorrow was superhuman: 
its force came from the full divinity which was 
joined with His perfect humanity. 

Consider first what death must mean to a sin- 
less being. We shrink from its pain or from the 
separation of soul and body. ‘These to Christ 
were the least of its terrors. By sin came death, 
and the sting of death is sin. Picture, if you can, 
how sin must appear to one who is sinless; and 
remember that death was sin claiming Christ’s 
body as its prey; death was the seeming triumph 
of Satan over the Son of God. Our Lord shrank, 
not from its pain, but from its pollution. The 
very thought of its foul familiarity was agony. 
Major André, when sentenced to die, begged to be 
shot as an honourable soldier rather than be hung 
as a common felon. Intensify this feeling of dis- 
grace a thousand times, and we have but a faint 
conception of what the stain of death must seem 
to one whose life has been unsullied by sin. 
Imagine the feelings of a noble woman about to 
fall into the hands of bestial savages; and then to 
strive to imagine what Christ must have felt as 
He saw Himself confronted by the loathsome em- 
braces of death. 


152 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


Consider next the special circumstances that 
intensified the anguish of His last hours. He 
must die,—the perfect obedience by which the 
redemption of a disobedient race was made pos- 
sible must not stop short of death; but need death 
be made doubly bitter by an accumulation of sor- 
rows? Christ’s heart was full of love to all about 
Him,—to His disciples, His friends, His nation, 
all mankind. But now His disciples were to for- 
sake Him; one of the Twelve would sell Him for 
the price of a slave, another would deny Him with 
oaths and curses. His own nation through its 
priests and rulers was hounding Him to death; 
its most honoured council would prostitute itself 
to secure that end, turning a solemn trial into a 
travesty, stooping to petty insults and showing 
Satanic malice. The great Roman government 
would lend a hand in these proceedings, consent- 
ing to become the instrument of a murder, suffer- 
ing its soldiers to abuse a helpless prisoner until 
their malice was sated. And the common people, 
for whom He had laboured unceasingly, and 
towards whom He had shown constant compas- 
sion and beneficence, would be transformed into a 
wild mob, crying, ‘‘ Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”’, 
choosing a robber upon whom to bestow their 
favour, and chuckling in glee as they watched His 
dying agonies. If death must come, need it come 
with such accompaniments? May there not be 


MOUNT OF THE AGONY 153: 


some solace of human sympathy,—some gleam of 
sunshine in the darkness of human hatred? Must 
all the worst passions of fallen man hold high 
carnival around the Christ as He enters the valley 
of the shadow? Shall not this cup, at least, be 
taken from His lips? 

Once more, consider how Christ’s sympathy 
made Him enter into all of our human life, and 
claim it as His own, while at the same time, divine 
omniscience showed Him how polluted that human 
life is. He had become a man; and all that per- 
tains to men was a part of His own estate. He 
had come down among a race of lepers; and their 
deformity and foul disease-—so feebly recognized 
by them, so plainly seen by Him,—was His by 
adoption. He had cast in His lot with them; and 
the agony which they ought to feel, He could not 
escape. There beneath the olives of Gethsemane, 
the burden of the race was rolled upon Him; and 
His keen sympathy made it fully His own. “ Of 
the living and of the dead and of the unborn, of 
the lost and of the saved, of His own people and 
of strangers, of sinners and of saints, all sins are 
there. It is the long history of a world, and God 
alone can bear the load of it:—hopes blighted, 
vows broken, lights quenched, warnings scorned, 
opportunities lost; the innocent betrayed, the 
young hardened, the penitent relapsing, the just 
overcome, the aged failing; the sophistry of mis- _ 


154 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


belief, the wilfulness of passion, the tyranny of 
habit, the canker of remorse, the wasting of care, 
the anguish of shame, the pining of disappoint- 
ment, the sickness of despair; such cruel, such 
pitiable spectacles, such heartrending, revolting, 
detestable, maddening scenes; nay! the haggard 
faces, the convulsed lips, the flushed cheeks, the 
dark brow of the willing victim of rebellion:— 
they are all before Him now, they are upon Him 
and in Him. They are with Him instead of that 
ineffable peace which has inhabited His soul since 
the moment of His conception. They are upon 
Him; they are all but His own”? (Newman). It 
was this which made Him a man of sorrows 
throughout His life; it was this in special measure 
which formed the bitterest agony of Gethsemane. 
There He who knew no sin was made sin for us 
that by becoming one with us He might make us 
one with God. Can we wonder that the burden 
crushed Him to the earth? That when He died 
upon the cross, He died, not from the torture of 
crucifixion, not from the thrust of a Roman spear, 
but from a broken heart,—broken because of the 
sins of the world? 

“Tf it be possible;” but it was not possible. 
There was no other way save this. The Son of 
Man must suffer. Oh, my brothers! as we stand 
within the shadows of Gethsemane, and dimly see 
the travail of Christ’s soul; as we watch the red 


MOUNT OF THE AGONY 155, 


drops gather upon His forehead, and hear the cry 
of anguish break from His lips——do we not begin 
to realize what sin is in His sight, and what that 
love must be which impelled Him to assume it for 
our sakes? We think lightly of the touch of pol- 
lution; but look at Jesus as it lays its hand upon 
Him. We rest in peace, counting iniquity a trivial 
matter for which an hour of penitence, a moment 
of good resolve, can atone; but see the price 
Christ had to pay that He might ransom us. 
Gethsemane means little to many men; but what 
did it mean to the Son of God when He knelt 
within its darkness centuries ago? “Is it noth- 
ing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold and see 
if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow.” 


“Behold your King! Though the moonlight steals 
Through the silvery sprays of the olive tree, 
No star-gemmed sceptre or crown it reveals 
In the solemn shade of Gethsemane: 
Only a form of prostrate grief, 
Fallen, crushed, like a broken leaf.— 
Ob! think of His sorrow that you may know, 
The depth of love in the depth of woe. 


Behold your King! Is it nothing to you 
That the crimson tokens of agony 
From the kingly brow must fall like dew 
Through the shuddering shades of Gethsemane? 
Jesus Himself, the Prince of Life, 
Bows in mysterious, mortal strife— 
Oh! think of His sorrow that you may know 
The unknown love in the unknown woe. 


156 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


Behold your King! With His sorrows crowned, 
Alone, alone in the valley is He: 
‘The shadows of death are gathering round, 
And the cross must follow Gethsemane. 

Darker and darker the gloom must fall, 

Filled is the cup; He must drink it all.— 
Oh! think of His sorrow that you may know 
His wondrous love in His wondrous woe.” 

—( Havergal.) 


Xx 
THE MOUNT OF THE CROSS 


ee PLACE, called the place of a skull, 
A where they crucified Him.” Can we 
find that place today and the tomb in 

a garden nigh at hand? Centuries ago the mother 
of Constantine thought she had found them, and 
built a church upon the spot. That church en- 
larged and altered, burned and rebuilded, dese- 
crated and reconsecrated, held at times by Per- 
sians, Saracens, Crusaders, Turks, as well as 
Christians, still stands today. No other building 
in Christendom is so full of appeals to supersti- 
tion and ignorant piety. In it the site of every 
incident of the last hours of Jesus is shown to 
credulous pilgrims,—where He was bound, where 
He was scourged, the holes for the three crosses, 
the place where His friends watched afar off, the 
slab on which His body was anointed, the tomb 
itself and the angels’ place within it, the tombs of 
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, the spot 
where He appeared to Mary His mother and to 
Mary Magdalene, and even such absurdities as 
the rock rent by the earthquake, the footprints of 


Christ on a stone and the grave of Adam. Also, 
157 


158 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


no other sacred building, reveals so clearly the 
strife that has torn the church of Christ until it 
is no longer His seamless garment. The Greeks, 
the Latins, the Armenians, the Copts and the 
Abyssinians, all have their special sections of the 
edifice, and jealously watch and sometimes fight 
one another, so that the Turks, when they held 
Palestine, kept a guard in the church to repress 
such outbreaks. It is, indeed, a dead Christ, who 
is worshipped in this church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre. In recent years the church has been a cause 
of contention among archeologists, also, some 
maintaining and others stoutly denying that the 
ground it covers was outside the city walls in the 
days of Jesus and so could have been Golgotha. 
There seems no immediate prospect that their dis- 
pute will be settled, and most of us feel little in- 
terest in the matter so long as the church presents 
such a travesty of the Christian religion. 

Another possible site for Calvary better suits 
the mood of the reverent visitor, though its iden- 
tification is equally uncertain. ‘This is the low, 
rounded hill just outside the northern wall of 
Jerusalem and close to the road that starts for 
Galilee from the Damascus Gate. Its summit has 
been used as a Moslem cemetery, and fortunately 
has thus been kept free from buildings. Its shape 
and the two excavations in its side make it look 
somewhat like a skull with empty eyesockets. A 
rock-cut tomb in a garden not far away is guarded 


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MOUNT OF THE CROSS 159 


as possibly that of Joseph of Arimathea. Of 
course, there is no statement in the Gospels that 
the cross stood on a hill,—the term Mount Cal- 
vary is late; but the name “ skull” may have been 
given to a hill thus shaped, and not—as some 
hold—to a place of execution. Facts are so few 
and so unimportant in this matter that we can let 
them be thrown aside for sentiment. Certainly, 
here is a place outside the present walls most ac- 
cordant with him who would muse on Calvary’s 
story. There are no crowds of curious, irreverent 
tourists, no demonstrations of grief and devotion 
by ignorant pilgrims, no strife of sects, no atmos- 
phere of superstition,—nothing to disturb a quiet 
meditation upon the incidents of that Friday when 
with the cry, “ It is finished,” our Lord bowed His 
head and died. 

With the exception of a few rare spirits like 
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathza, the San- 
hedrin had become a unit in the decision that 
Jesus must die. It was, as Caiaphas said, expedi- 
ent for them all. The Pharisees recognized that 
if the teachings of Jesus were accepted, their 
whole interpretation of the Law and all the im- 
portance and authority they gained through it, 
were ended. The Sadducees knew that a rupture 
with Rome, such as they supposed Jesus was striv- 
ing to create, would destroy, probably the whole 
nation, certainly their own comfortable and profit- 
able relations with the Roman government. The 


160 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


chief priests, who drew enormous revenues from 
the temple worship and were constantly increas- 
ing them by cunning exactions, feared that Jesus 
would rouse a successful revolt against their prac- 
tices. With one voice all said, “ This Galilean 
must be put out of our way.” 

Open violence to Jesus was impossible because 
the people would resent it. Whatever was done, 
they must not be offended; even the Sanhedrin 
dared not face a tempest of popular wrath. But 
what could be done? An Oriental, then and now, 
turns to assassination as the quickest and easiest 
way to dispose of an enemy. If Jesus were found 
some morning with a dagger in His heart, no one 
would inquire very carefully whether this was sui- 
cide or murder; and the disciples without their 
leader would be powerless to avenge His death. 
But Jesus in public was always surrounded by a 
band of followers who unconsciously served as 
a bodyguard; during the weeks preceding the 
Passover He was in retirement where His enemies 
could not find Him; and during the Passover He 
never spent a night within the city, and had no 
fixed abode outside its walls. While vainly seek- 
ing opportunity to end His life, the Sanhedrin 
unexpectedly found that one of the disciples stood 
ready to betray Him. Judas for thirty silver 
shekels could be hired to guide them to a place 
where they might seize his Master when only the 
little band of apostles was with Him. This made 





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MOUNT OF THE CROSS 161 


the matter simple, and they acted promptly. In 
the shadows of Thursday night they and the 
power of darkness had their hour, and Jesus was 
delivered up to His enemies. ‘The so-called trial 
by the Sanhedrin, which followed His arrest, was 
an empty form, observed partly to satisfy their 
own uneasy consciences, partly to justify their 
action if His friends should question it. The ver- 
dict was fixed in advance, and the examination of 
the prisoner only confirmed it. Had the Romans 
not taken away the power to inflict a death 
penalty, or even had Pilate not been in the city, 
the Sanhedrin might possibly have dared to end 
His life by stoning, and on the morrow have re- 
ported that He was put to death for blasphemy. 
As it was they had to hand Him over to the Pro- 
curator for execution. 

The next chapter in the tragedy,—the trial be- 
fore Pilate——is chiefly important as a further 
revelation of the malignity of the Sanhedrin. It 
put the guilt of Christ’s death still more clearly 
upon His own nation. Pilate is often represented 
as a weak, sceptical ruler, who could jest with 
Jesus, delude himself into peace of conscience by 
washing his hands, and send his prisoner to the 
cross with a sneer at both Him and His enemies. 
Such a representation does Him injustice. That 
he was selected by the Roman emperor to govern 
the most difficult and rebellious of all the provinces 
and held his office for ten years, shows that he 


162 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


was not a feeble or careless official; and his stout 
struggle to secure the release of Jesus is proof that 
he was disposed to be an upright judge. Evi- 
dently he was better acquainted with the claims 
of Jesus than the Sanhedrin supposed. As a 
prudent governor he had kept watch of His move- 
ments within his own domains, even as Herod had 
in Galilee and Perea. The triumphal entry would 
not have been allowed unless the Roman authori- 
ties had recognized that it was a religious and not 
a political demonstration. The demand for a 
guard to arrest Jesus may have brought the matter 
afresh to Pilate’s mind the previous evening; and, 
if dreams take their form from waking thoughts, 
the dream of Pilate’s wife would indicate that he 
had told her what was on foot. It is even pos- 
sible that, as the wife of Herod’s steward was a 
follower of Jesus, so some of Procla’s attendants 
may have been His disciples, and her belief that 
He was a just man may have arisen from more 
than the impression of her dream. The statement 
that Pilate knew that for envy the chief priests 
wished Jesus put to death, certainly shows his 
clear grasp of the situation. Though we may not 
be ready, like the Abyssinian church, to enroll 
him among the saints, we ought to give him credit 
for his repeated efforts to prevent the crime upon 
which the Sanhedrin was bent. He defended 
Jesus until it became evident that to save Him he 


MOUNT OF THE CROSS 163 


must risk his office and perhaps his life; under the 
circumstances we could not expect more. 

Pilate’s resistance took the Jews by surprise, 
and carried them to lengths from which in cooler 
moments they would have drawn back in horror. 
Their cry, ‘‘ His blood be on us and on our chil- 
dren,” appalling as the words seem to us, and 
terrible as was their sequel forty years later, was 
simply an emphatic assertion of their belief in the 
prisoner’s guilt and their readiness to bear the re- 
sponsibility of His execution. But only the ur- 
gency of bloodthirsty desires and the recklessness 
of passion could have called forth the declaration, 
** We have no king but Cesar.” Rather than ac- 
knowledge the Christ, they bowed the knee to the 
Roman emperor. It was not the rabble but the 
rulers who made the avowal. And these words, 
spoken by the official heads of the nation to the 
official representative of Rome, formed an open, 
irrevocable surrender of the Jewish national life. 
In their refusal to accept Jesus as Messiah, the 
Jews had committed religious suicide; now in 
their eagerness to compass His death, they like- 
wise committed political suicide. Henceforth they 
were dead in the sight of God and of man. 

“Then they crucified Him.” Only a morbid 
mind will linger over the bodily sufferings of Jesus 
before and during the crucifixion; and to make 
them prominent is unprofitable. Physically His 
death upon the cross has often been paralleled; 


164 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


but spiritually it remains forever transcendent. 
Let us, then, seek reverently to learn the mind and 
heart of our Lord as He passed into the valley of 
the shadow of death. We have watched Him at 
Gethsemane; now we will watch at “the place 
which is called Golgotha.” 

The revelation of the soul of Jesus, as He of- 
fered up His life, is in the so-called Seven Words 
of the Cross,—His utterances during the hours of 
crucifixion. The first was when they nailed Him 
to the cross. The manner of. crucifying varied 
somewhat. In the present instance it is simplest 
to think that the soldiers first nailed or tied to- 
gether upon the ground the two pieces of wood 
that formed the cross, then stripped the victim 
and bound and nailed him to it, and finally erected 
it with its burden. We can imagine the screams 
and curses and entreaties that filled the air when 
the cruel spikes were driven into the hands and 
feet of the two thieves. But when in like manner 
the Divine Victim suffered, there was heard only 
the cry, “‘ Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do.” Stretched there upon the cross, 
looking up into the hard, pitiless faces of the ex- 
ecutioners who bent over Him, mallet and spikes 
in hand, looking beyond them into the depths of 
the cloudless sky, shuddering in agony as the great 
nails crunched through flesh and bone, Jesus ut- 
tered this prayer,—a prayer for His murderers. 
The torture of His body was disregarded in His 


MOUNT OF THE CROSS 165 


pity and love for these ignorant, brutal men. Can 
we wonder that the Roman centurion, watching 
the scene and hearing the prayer, recognized that 
here was a prisoner such as he never had seen be- 
fore, and said afterwards, “‘ Truly this man was 
the Son of God’? 

Now the soldiers began their tedious watch 
around the crosses: and to while away the time 
divided among themselves the garments of the 
crucified, casting dice for a seamless frock which 
could not be divided. They had brought along 
their lunch; and as they ate, they jeered at the 
pretentions of the miserable Jew who was hanging 
in silence above them. They held up the canteen 
filled with sour wine, inviting Him to take a drink 
from it; and they pointed to the placard they had 
nailed above His head, chuckling at its absurdity, 
and saying, “If thou art the King of the Jews, 
save thyself.” Horrible blasphemy, must we call 
it? True; yet I would rather give account for 
those ignorant Roman soldiers in the day of judg- 
ment than for men who revile the Son of God in 
our own land and day. 

The place of crucifixion was near the public 
road where all who passed by could see the 
crosses. ‘The priests were fearful lest some sym- 
pathy might be kindled for the sufferer who hung 
there with the remarkable inscription above His 
head, “ Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” 
So they stayed by, and took the lead in railing at 


166 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


the Crucified and deriding His claims. The peo- 
ple caught their spirit, and vied with one another 
in shouting abuse and ridicule. ‘“ Ha! thou that 
destroyest the temple and buildest it again in three 
days, save thyself! Let the Christ, the King of 
Israel, now come down from the cross, that we 
may see and believe. He trusted in God; let Him 
deliver Him now, if He will have Him. He saved 
others, Himself He cannot save.’ The spirit of 
reviling reached even the two thieves. Possibly 
they hoped to win a little favour and help by join- 
ing in the cries; possibly in their torture they were 
ready to curse anybody and anything. The cries 
of sufferers on the cross often were unceasing 
oaths and curses. Presently, however, a change 
came over one of the two men. Something in the 
silent, unreproachful endurance of Jesus awed 
him. Perhaps he already knew a little about the 
life and claims of the Messiah from Nazareth, and 
the longer he watched Him, the more he felt that 
this man was what He claimed to be. Turning to 
his companion he rebuked him; and then turning 
to Jesus he said humbly, “ Jesus, remember me 
when thou comest in thy kingdom.” The prayer 
at such an hour was a triumph of faith; and it 
was answered even beyond the asking. The peni- 
tent thief addressed Jesus as the Messiah of the 
Jews, he was answered by Jesus as the Saviour of 
the world. He prayed that in the unknown 
future, when all wrong should be righted, Jesus 


MOUNT OF THE CROSS 167, 


would not forget one who had been a fellow- 
sufferer; he was promised that his Lord, going 
side by side with him through the dread portals 
of death, would crown his faith with immediate 
blessings. For the second time upon the cross 
Jesus spoke, ‘Today shalt thou be with me in 
Paradise.” Was that promise, given at such a 
time, under such awful circumstances, an empty 
word? 

A third saying followed soon. Certain little 
hints in the gospel record lead us to conclude that 
as soon as Jesus was nailed to the cross, the apos- 
tle John hastened to the city to bring His mother 
to the place. She came attended by other women, 
her relatives and friends. Her tears and look of 
horror and despair showed that the prophecy of 
old Simeon, when she presented her wondrous 
child in the temple, was now fulfilled; ‘“‘ Yea, and 
a sword shall pierce through thine own soul.” 
Never did such a mother mourn for such a son. 
Once more Jesus turned from His own sufferings 
to minister to her need. The disciple whom He 
loved would best take a son’s place with Mary, 
and would himself find comfort in caring for her 
in His stead. He dared not speak her name or 
reveal her relationship, lest the rabble be roused 
to vent their spite upon her and her companions. 
“Woman, behold thy son,” He said to Mary; 
“Behold thy mother,” He said to John. It was 
the only service He could render,—the last tender 


168 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


act of a perfect sonship which remains our per- 
petual example. Presently John led Mary away, 
unable longer to endure the sight before her. 

Three Words of the Cross: first, a prayer for 
the ignorant; second, a promise to the penitent; 
third, a charge to the beloved. They are Jesus’ 
farewell to men,—His last words to those for 
whom and with whom He has laboured throughout 
the years. Now He must give Himself wholly to 
the final struggle with the powers of sin and death, 
the crowning work of redeeming love. 

The hours had crept on from nine till noon. 
The sun stood high overhead, and its rays beat 
down with torturing fierceness upon the silent suf- 
ferer. But now a strange shadow crept across the 
landscape: the air was full of gathering gloom; 
there was a hush and pallor like that which come 
before the tempest and the earthquake. Fear 
seized the spectators; the taunts and ribald cries 
and mockery ceased; men stood with bated 
breath; and the gathering, deepening darkness 
slowly blotted out all sight of the cross. Nature 
was showing her abhorrence of the scene, her sym- 
pathy with Him who is her Lord. The Father was 
veiling the anguish of His Son from irreverent 
and hostile eyes. 

What followed next we understand only in part. 
The mystery of the atonement baffles human 
thought; but we know, for it has been plainly told 
us, that Christ “bore our sins in His own body 


MOUNT OF THE CROSS 169 


on the cross that we being dead to sin should live 
unto righteousness.” There in the noontime dark- 
ness, when the watchers spoke to one another in 
awed whispers, and the stoutest heart felt a thrill 
of terror, and earth stood waiting her deliverance 
with trembling expectation, there in dread solitude 
the last great work of man’s redemption was 
wrought, the ransom for our sins was fully paid. 
Brothers, sisters, sinstained and _ helpless,—our 
hope is in that love which suffered for us on 
Calvary. 

The hours wore on; it was almost three o’clock, 
and the end was near. Slowly the darkness lifted, 
the sun reappeared, and men breathed with new 
confidence. Then unexpectedly there came from 
the silent sufferer a strange cry, “ Eli, Eli, lama 
sabachthanip—My God, My God, why hast Thou 
forsaken me?” It is a cry of sore anguish; and 
some scholars, who never question that Jesus was 
a good man, interpret it as a cry of despair. 
Strange that they do not see the inconsistency! 
When the prophet of old prayed, ‘‘ Let me die the 
death of the righteous, and let my last end be like 
His,” he knew, what later ages have constantly 
confirmed, that a man of God never dies in 
despair. The faith that carried him onward to the 
last hour does not suddenly vanish then. The cry 
of Jesus is the opening sentence of the twenty- 
second Psalm. What the words meant in His lips 
at that hour we hardly dare try to conjecture. 


170 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


They reveal an awful loneliness of spirit,—the 
loneliness and separation that arise when sin is 
like a black cloud between the soul and God; and 
yet there is in them the unwavering trust, the un- 
broken intimacy, that ever looks to God as “ My 
God.” The cry arises not from physical pain but 
from a distress of spirit that links Calvary with 
Gethsemane; and it is caused by that same cup, 
whose bitterness seems unendurable, yet whose 
contents to the very dregs are being drunk in 
obedience to the Father’s will. 

Another cry just a little later, ‘ I thirst,” seems 
to have been forced from the Saviour’s lips not so 
much by physical craving, fierce as that must have 
been, as by remembrance of the same Psalm. In 
the hours of the travail of His soul, the mind of 
the Saviour was filled with Scripture prophecies; 
He was fulfilling the purpose declared from the 
beginning. One of the soldiers, hearing the cry 
and moved by an impulse of compassion which the 
terror of the darkness had quickened, dipped a 
sponge in the sour wine that formed part of their 
noonday meal, and raised it to the parched and 
blackened lips. Some of the others plucked up 
courage and tried, as men will try, to disguise their 
former fears by a coarse jest about Elijah—a pun 
on the cry of anguish they had just heard. But 
it was too late now for much of mockery. After 
accepting the draught, Christ paused for a mo- 


MOUNT OF THE CROSS 171 


ment, as if to summon His energies for the end, 
and then with a loud voice cried, “‘ It is finished,’ 
“ Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit ”; 
and bowing His head He gave up the ghost. As 
that cry rang forth upon the air, earth trembled, 
the stones rolled away from the sepulchres on the 
hillside, and the great veil hanging before the Holy 
of Holies in the temple was rent from top to bot- 
tom. Bethlehem and Calvary both are full of the 
miraculous; and their contrast reveals the tragedy 
of Christ’s years upon this earth. The life that 
began with a burst of heavenly glory and a song 
by angelic choristers, ended with darkness and 
earthquake and visions of the dead. 

Only a word more, and the story is told. Even- 
ing was coming on, and the Jews were growing 
uneasy lest the presence of three criminals hang- 
ing upon crosses by the city walls should pollute 
the sanctity of their feast. So at their request 
Pilate authorized his soldiers to hasten the death 
of the crucified. The legs of the thieves were 
broken which speedily ended their sufferings. 
But on coming to Jesus the soldiers were surprised 
to find Him already dead. Such a speedy death 
was remarkable, for often a person on the cross 
lingered for days and died at last from sheer ex- 
haustion. The brutal thrust of a Roman spear 
made evident why death came so speedily: the 
Saviour died on the cross but not of the cross;— 


172 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


He died of a broken heart. Overcome by grief 

and spiritual anguish, worn out by the struggle 

with sin, He uttered one last, loud cry of victory; 

and then that human heart, surcharged with the 

guilt and woe of man, was torn asunder. Christ 

died of a broken heart; broken by the sins of the 

world,—our sins. ‘“‘He was wounded for our 

transgressions, He died bruised for our iniquities; 

the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; 

and with His stripes we are healed.” ‘This is the 

one sad, awful fact that fills our thoughts as in 

imagination we see His mangled body taken down 

from the cross. This is the one great truth I pray 

Wwe may carry with us, as we turn from our study 

of Calvary. 

Saviour, Saviour, strange was thy dying cry,— 

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! 

Darkness and mystery shrouded Thine agony; 

Sunlight grew sombre when falling on Calvary; 

Friends all abandoned Thee; foes mocked Thy helpless- 
ness; 

Torture and thirst racked Thy frame with a sore dis- 
tress: 


Still, O Saviour, these did not cause Thy cry,— 
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ! 


Saviour, Saviour, why was that dying cry,— 
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! 
Why did the Father so far away seem to be? 
What hid His face in the hour of Thine agony? 
Why did He thus refuse fully His own to bless, 
Leaving Thee dying in terrible loneliness? 
Lord, Redeemer, what caused that awful cry,— 
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? 


MOUNT OF THE CROSS 173 


Saviour, Saviour, I caused that dying cry,— 

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! 
Death was the penalty, Lord, Thou didst pay for me; 
Mine were the sins that so heavily lay on Thee; 
Mine the pollution which thus made Thee start aghast; 
Mine the iniquity, breaking Thy heart at last: 

Yea, O Saviour, Thou in my stead didst cry, 

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! 


XI 
THE MOUNT OF THE ASCENSION 


land which Renan once called ‘a fifth 

gospel, torn but still legible.’ Modern 
ways and ideas are rapidly supplanting those that 
had survived with little change from Bible times. 
The transformation began before the Great War, — 
but has gone on much more rapidly since. Rail- 
ways, good roads and the automobile have opened 
travel to hosts of tourists, who rush over the land, 
breakfasting at Jerusalem, inspecting Jacob’s well 
before lunch at Shechem, taking afternoon tea at 
Nazareth, and arriving at Tiberias in season for 
a sail on the Lake before dinner. Their coming 
has wrought countless changes, and has made any 
sacred site along their route a place of possible 
profit for its proprietors. So we find that the 
Mount of Olivet is increasingly covered with build- 
ings, and two edifices upon its summit are rival 
claimants as occupying the spot from which Jesus 
ascended. Fortunately the real site, we may be- 
lieve, is still free from such invasion. Luke tells 
us that it was “over against Bethany,” not far 


from the little village. The old footpath from 
174 


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MOUNT OF THE ASCENSION 175 


Jerusalem led straight up across the summit of 
Olivet, and being much shorter than the road, 
would be followed by the Master and His dis- 
ciples; and somewhere on that path, as He drew 
nigh to Bethany, He spoke His farewell words and 
“while He blessed them, He parted from them 
and was carried up into heaven.” Let the exact 
spot remain unknown; it is better so. 

The ascension of Jesus is only a minor incident 
in the events that followed His resurrection; but 
the resurrection itself is a central fact in Chris- 
tian evidences. Jesus foretold that it would be. 
Whenever the Jews, challenging His claims, asked 
** What sign showest Thou unto us? ” His answer 
was “ The sign of the prophet Jonah,—the sign of 
the temple raised up in three days after you de- 
stroy it.” The apostles recognized that an im- 
portant part of their mission was to bear witness 
of His resurrection. And the Christian church 
throughout the centuries has made ‘“‘ He is risen ” 
a foundation-stone of its faith. “If Christ hath 
not been raised, then is our preaching vain, your 
faith also is vain.” A dead Christ and a sealed 
tomb leave the world without hope. But if Christ 
be risen, then arguments against miracles are vain, 
for this is the greatest miracle of all; arguments 
against the divinity of our Lord are vain, for this 
certifies it; arguments against Christianity are 
vain, for this sets the seal of truth upon the teach- 
ings of its Founder; arguments against immortal- 


176 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


ity are vain, for Christ is become the first fruit of 
them that are asleep. The dishonest seeker after 
truth will turn aside to all sorts of minor points. 
He will be deeply concerned about the fish story 
of Jonah and the frog story of Moses; he will be 
ready to wrangle over knotty theological prob- 
lems,—foreordination, the origin of evil, eternal 
punishment; he will be greatly scandalized by the 
conduct of Old Testament saints and Twentieth 
Century church members. But he will refuse to 
seek an honest answer to the central question, 
“Did Jesus rise from the dead; and if so, whose 
Son is He? ” 

When, in sincere search for the truth, we study 
the resurrection, we find no fact in ancient history 
more firmly established by trustworthy testimony. 
The apostles certainly were fully convinced that 
their Lord had risen; otherwise the Christian 
church never could have come into existence. Men 
are not willing to sacrifice fortune and life for a 
truth they only half believe. The earliest written 
records of the church are the epistles of Paul. 
Four of these, viz., I and II Corinthians, Gala- 
tians, and Romans, practically all critics admit 
to be genuine; and they show that less than thirty 
years after the crucifixion, Paul, who was one of 
the keenest, most critical of men, with every rea- 
son to question the fact closely, and abundant op- 
portunity to examine the evidence, firmly believed 
in the resurrection and was making it the central 


MOUNT OF THE ASCENSION 177 


topic in his preaching. Paul’s conviction was that 
of the rest. ‘“‘ This Jesus did God raise up, 
whereof we all are witnesses.”” We must acknowl- 
edge, however, that the fact there was such be- 
lief does not make such belief a fact; it may have 
been created by deliberate fraud or by excited 
imagination. Let us consider this a moment. 

If there was fraud, who perpetrated it? Evi- 
dently either Jesus or His disciples; they are the 
only parties interested. Could it have been Jesus? 
Apart from the improbability that He still was 
alive when taken down from the cross, and the 
physical impossibility that a man who had been 
through the tortures inflicted upon Him could re- 
tain strength enough to accomplish the deception, 
is there not a moral impossibility arising from the 
character of Jesus? Whatever else He was, He 
certainly was honest; and any such trickery by 
Him is incredible. How then about the disciples? 
Did they conspire to cheat the world into a belief 
that Jesus had risen? The difficulties in carrying 
out any such scheme were enormous; and who of 
the Twelve, when Jesus died, was in a frame of 
mind to grapple with them? Moreover, what 
would the apostles gain by the fraud? If they 
knew that Christ was an impostor and the resur- 
rection a hoax, why should they leave their homes 
and journey from city to city, hated, scourged, 
thrown into prison and put to death, for the gos- 
pel’s sake? And how could they become the great- 


178 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


est of moral teachers, and stoutly proclaim that 
any form of deceit is an abomination to God and 
the kingdom of heaven is shut against him who 
maketh and loveth a lie, while all the time they 
were preaching a falsehood and conspiring to pre- 
vent its detection? 

If we grant that the apostles were honest in 
their belief that Christ had risen, may they not, 
nevertheless, have been mistaken? Was the resur- 
rection anything more than an illusion? Did 
Mary Magdalene in some hysterical moment 
imagine she saw her Lord and heard His voice; 
and then the other disciples, catching her hysteria, 
begin likewise to see visions and hear voices? Or 
was there, indeed, some spiritual manifestation, 
some vision of the night, some revelation from the 
unseen world, which brought to the disciples the 
assurance of His life beyond the grave, but was 
distorted in their account of it into a bodily resur- 
rection? Both of these theories have been seri- 
ously propounded. But according to either, what 
became of Christ’s body? If the disciples stole 
it away, they could not be deceived into believing 
in a resurrection. If it still slumbered in the tomb, 
then the story of an empty tomb could at any mo- 
ment be refuted. Renan admits that the question 
is not easily answered, but says it is unimportant. 
The more I consider it, the more difficult becomes 
the answer and likewise the more important. 
Again, a ghostly vision would never be interpreted 


MOUNT OF THE ‘ASCENSION 179 


as a bodily resurrection, for the simple reason that 
the former was a familiar idea to the disciples, the 
latter was not. They were ready to believe in 
spirits; but only with difficulty did Jesus con- 
vince them that He was present in the body. 
Concerning any theory that the resurrection was 
but a delusion, notice one thing: imagination 
works along the line of least resistance and cheats 
us into believing what we already desire and ex- 
pect,—the wish is father to the fancy. So, if 
Christ’s disciples had been confidently expecting 
a resurrection of their Master, they possibly might 
have wrought their minds up to a pitch where they 
could cheat themselves into believing that it had 
taken place. But everything shows they had no 
thought that He would live again,—they sorrowed 
without hope. When the women found the sepul- 
chre empty, they supposed the body had been 
transferred to another grave. When Mary Mag- 
dalene reported that she had seen the Master alive, 
all scoffed at her story. When Thomas was told 
that Jesus had appeared to the other apostles he 
declared that he would not believe they had seen 
more than His ghost, unless he should touch the 
wounds with his own fingers. A set of men harder 
to convince, it would be difficult to find; and all 
because they had no expectation of a resurrection. 
Surely they could not be carried away by fancy 
to believe that their Master had risen from the 


180 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR .LORD 


dead, when the thought of it was wholly absent 
from their minds. 

These are but a few arguments out of many. 
Even apart from the others they serve as strong 
proofs that Christ’s resurrection was neither a 
fraud nor a delusion, but a wonderful fact. And 
when the other arguments are added we have a 
mass of evidence that would seem sufficient to con- 
vince any except those who are determined not to 
believe. 

Another question arises at this point. If Christ 
rose from the dead, why did He manifest Himself 
to the disciples only,—why not to the people and 
the Sanhedrin? His crucifixion and death had 
been public and indisputable, why not make the 
resurrection the same? Several answers suggest 
themselves. As regards the Sanhedrin we may be 
sure that the effect of this last and greatest miracle 
would have been the same as that of the previous 
ones. It would not convince; it would only ex- 
asperate. They explained all of Jesus’ miracles as 
the result of His league with Satan. The greater 
the miracle, therefore, the greater their fear and 
hatred. What they lacked was not evidence but 
preparation of heart. As regards the common 
people, a manifestation of the risen Christ would 
doubtless have thrown them at once into the wild- 
est excitement and kindled their Messianic frenzy 
afresh. They would have cried out once more for 
insurrection and war against Rome,—the very 


MOUNT OF THE ASCENSION 181 


thing Jesus had been guarding against all through 
the previous years. To manifest Himself to the 
people would destroy His work up to the present, 
and force Him to begin anew. 

A still deeper answer to this question is found 
in the character of the faith Jesus seeks to develop 
in His followers. Faith that rests upon sight is not 
faith at all. A thousand followers who believed 
in a risen Christ because they had looked on His 
pierced hands and touched His bleeding side, 
would not have the spiritual power of a score who 
believed because their hearts burned within them 
at the unseen presence of their Lord, and their un- 
derstandings were illumined as He opened to them 
the Scriptures. It is the quality of belief and not 
the quantity of believers that is important. The 
last Beatitude that Jesus spoke was, “‘ Blessed are 
they that have not seen and yet have believed.” 
The truths concerning Christ are not to be gained 
and treated like truths concerning ancient history, 
astronomy, mathematics. Christian knowledge 
necessitates obedience or disobedience. And it is 
purposely framed to mold our character, by de- 
veloping in us faith, hope and love. We walk in 
darkness, holding the hand of an unseen Lord, 
that, as St. Peter expresses it, ‘the proof of your 
faith may be found unto praise and honour and 
glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom not 
having seen ye love; on whom though now ye see 
Him not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy un- 


182 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


speakable and full of glory, receiving the end of 
your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” 

Jesus after His resurrection could not manifest 
Himself to the world, for such manifestation would 
be injurious instead of helpful. He could appear 
to the little band only who already loved Him and 
longed for His presence but were overwhelmed 
with sorrow and had no thought of His resurrec- 
tion because they did not as yet understand His 
words about it or the predictions of the Scrip- 
tures. In their state of mind His appearance to 
them was exceedingly helpful. It comforted, edu- 
cated and inspired them as nothing else could. It 
changed their whole attitude, and made them ready 
for Pentecost and witness-bearing. The forty days 
between the resurrection and the ascension was a 
time when their faith pushed from bud to blossom, 
and when spiritually they grew up from little chil- 
dren into men and brethren. 

How full and frequent the manifestations of 
Jesus to His disciples during this period were, we 
cannot say. We have mention in the gospels of 
less than a dozen, and particulars of only six or 
seven. But the opening statement of the Book of 
Acts seems to indicate more numerous appearances 
and prolonged conversations. There was much for 
Him to teach His disciples. In the earlier days 
He had often been forced to say, ‘‘ What I do thou 
knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.” 
Now the time of revelation, when they could study 


MOUNT OF THE ASCENSION 183, 


His gospel in the light of His cross, had come; and 
within the soil that had been furrowed by the 
anguish of Good Friday, the despair of Saturday, 
the overwhelming joy of Easter Sunday, any seed 
He might sow would find a fertile resting place. 
Then, too, before His ascension Christ must ac- 
custom them to think of Him as ever present, even 
if unseen. He did this by repeated appearances 
and disappearances. Whenever they specially 
longed for Him or when, perhaps, they were think- 
ing least about Him,—in hours of doubt and sor- 
row, in hours of worship or work or recreation, in 
the dusk of evening or in the grey mists of early 
morn, at any moment and anywhere, their Master 
might appear, coming in His old form, resuming 
at once the old relations; and then, when He had 
given them the teaching and the benediction they 
needed, suddenly He was gone again, and once 
more they were alone. Thus increasingly they 
came to recognize that they never really were 
alone,—that He was ever with them though they 
saw Him not. And so, at last, when He ascended 
to His Father, the disciples did not feel that they 
were forsaken and that He was far away. The 
ascension brought no sad sense of separation; on 
the contrary, they “returned to Jerusalem with 
great joy; and were continually in the temple, 
blessing God.” Indeed, the ascension was not a 
matter of great importance to them. They never 
emphasized it in their preaching, nor treated it as 


184 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD ~— 
marking a special period in Christ’s history. To 
say that Christ had ascended to His Father was 
in their thoughts perfectly consistent with saying 
that He was with them always even unto the end 
of the world. 

What was the nature of that body in which 
Christ thus manifested Himself to the disciples? 
Was it simply the old body, revivified but un- 
changed, as was the body of Lazarus? Or was it 
a spiritual body such as we shall have when we 
rise from the dead? Or was it something midway 
between the two,—not altogether that body which 
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathza laid in the 
tomb, nor yet the body which John on Patmos saw 
in revelation? The opinion universally prevalent 
in former times was that Christ rose with a spir- 
itual body, such as that with which each of His 
followers shall one day rise. In support of this 
opinion it is pointed out that the risen Saviour in 
many ways is different from the Jesus who was put 
to death. He appears and disappears suddenly; 
He comes into a room when the doors are shut; 
He talks with His disciples, and they do not recog- 
nize Him until He chooses to make Himself known.. » 
There is something so ghostly about His. appear- 
ance and acts that those who see Him think they 
see a spirit. But, on the other hand, Jesus evi- 
dently insists that His body is an earthly one. 
“ See my hands and feet that it is I myself; handle 
me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, 


MOUNT OF THE ASCENSION 185 


as ye see me having. If you still doubt, give me 
something to eat and watch me as I eat it; for a 
Spirit never eats.” By word and deed He strives 
to make His disciples recognize that He is the 
same Lord who was crucified, now living and able 
to resume the old earthly life. Unless we believe 
that He sought to deceive them, we must conclude 
that His resurrection was simply the quickening 
of the physical body which had slumbered in death 
through the hours of the Jewish Sabbath. ‘“ I have 
power to lay down my life, and I have power to 
take it again.” 

If Christ came forth from the tomb with the 
same body that was nailed to the cross, how can 
we explain the seemingly new property it possessed 
of becoming visible or invisible at His pleasure? 
I say seemingly new, because we are not sure that 
there were not instances of such invisibility during 
His public ministry. When, for example, we read 
that, as they took up stones to cast at Him, He 
“hid Himself” or “was hidden” and went out 
of the temple (John 8:59), what can we under- 
stand except that suddenly He veiled Himself from 
the sight of His enemies? Under the circum- 
stancés in no other way could He—perhaps, we 
might say, would He—conceal Himself. But was 
such disappearance a miracle, thus contradicting 
the oft-repeated statement that Jesus never 
wrought a miracle for His own advantage? In 
former days our only answer must be Yes; but 


186 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


with our present knowledge of the properties of 
matter, possibly we may answer No. Certainly 
the electrons which make up the atoms of matter 
are units of invisible force; and there is nothing 
absurd in the idea that matter may be at one mo- 
ment visible and at another invisible, and that the 
will of Jesus, having perfect control over His body, 
might make it appear or disappear. Shall we ever 
grow wise enough and mighty enough to do the 
same with our bodies? Who is so rash as either 
to affirm or to deny it? 

After the lesson of His perpetual presence was 
fully learned, Christ must go from His disciples 
out of the visible into the unseen world. Why this 
necessity, He Himself has explained: “It is ex- 
pedient for you that I go away.” Not expedient 
for Himself, for the angels in heaven, for the spir- 
its of just men made perfect, but expedient for His 
disciples. ‘‘ For if I go not away, the Comforter 
will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send 
Him unto you.” We fashion for ourselves other 
reasons why Christ’s departure was expedient for 
us. We emphasize the fact that now He can be 
present spiritually with each one of His followers, 
whereas a bodily presence would confine Him to a 
fortunate few. We point out that faith grows 
stronger and deeper with an unseen Saviour. All 
well enough; but not the reason Christ assigned. 
He said the coming of the Holy Spirit was depen- 
dent upon His departure. Why that should be we 


MOUNT OF THE ASCENSION 187 


cannot tell. It is a mystery; and our deepest ex- 
planations are shallow guesses. Rather let us ac- 
cept the statement without asking why; and medi- 
tate upon the richness of the blessing. Next to the 
gift made possible by His death, could any be 
greater than this made possible by His departure? 
He died for our salvation; He ascended for our 
sanctification. 

“IT came out from the Father, and am come into 
the world; again, I leave the world, and go unto 
the Father.” But how shall He go? How shall 
the Son of man resume the glory that belongs to 
Him as the Son of God? Shall He lay the mortal 
body once more to rest in the tomb? That would 
be to undo all the work of the resurrection. Death 
once conquered can no more have power over Him. 
Shall He, like Moses, pass forth to a mysterious 
and unrevealed end, climbing some lonely moun- 
tain to be never again seen by men? Nay! His 
life has hitherto been manifest to men, it must not 
now be veiled. He came as a light into the world, 
and He must shine until the end. Shall He, then, 
be carried up to heaven, like Elijah, amid a theo- 
phanic blaze of horses and chariot of fire? Such 
a termination might glorify the life of a man, but 
Christ does not need it because He is more than 
man. 

Turn to the Book of Acts and read its opening 
verses. The history of the new body of Christ, 
which is the church, is fitly prefaced by an account 


188 MOUNTAIN PEAKS OF OUR LORD 


of the translation of the old body, His flesh. Once 
more the disciples are gathered at Jerusalem; and 
the Master is with them. The forty days are 
ended; and Pentecost is little more than a week 
away. Christ has taught them many things; but 
still there is much for them to learn, and they have 
not quite given up their dream of an earthly king- 
dom. The Holy Spirit will be their teacher pres- 
ently; and their true mission as founders of the 
kingdom of God will then be understood. ‘They 
are to be kings and priests in a grander realm than 
the petty principality of Palestine, and in a nobler 
temple than that on Mount Moriah. But the one 
condition of their high office is unceasing sacrificial 
service. ‘‘ Ye shall be witnesses to me.” The 
Greek word “ witness” is that from which comes 
our English word “ martyr.”’ Do we recognize the 
bond of union between the two? 

Then Christ leads the little band forth along the 
well remembered path towards Bethany. They 
pass Gethsemane, but turn not in; its bitterness is 
forever ended. They cross the ridge of Olivet, but 
look not back for a farewell view of the city; Jeru- 
salem is the Sacred City no more. And somewhere 
as they draw near the familiar village of Lazarus, 
the last good-bye is said. With hands outstretched 
in benediction,—what attitude could be more 
beautiful and typical of the life now closing?—He 
parts from them. This time He does not vanish 
suddenly. Their eager eyes behold Him rising in 


MOUNT OF THE ASCENSION 189 


the air, borne heavenward as by the yearnings of 
His heart; and a cloud veils the gathering glory 
which no earthly eyes can look upon and live. 


“Gone beyond the highest height 
Of mortal gaze or angel’s flight; 
Through the veil of time and space 
Passed into the Holiest Place; 
All the toil, the sorrow done,— 
All the battle fought and won.” 


While the disciples stand, still looking up in 
silent adoration, a farewell message comes back 
to them, even as a message comes back borne by 
the pilot-boat from a friend who has crossed the 
harbour-bar. Two angels speak to the little band. 
“Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into 
heaven? This Jesus who was received up from 
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as 
ye beheld Him going into heaven.” ‘* Even so, 
Lord Jesus, come quickly.” 


THE END 


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